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THE NORMAN WAIT HARRIS 
MEMORIAL FOUNDATION 





OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 
OF THE FAR EASTERN PROBLEM 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


— 


THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED 
TORONTO 


THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
LONDON 


THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI 


THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY 
SHANGHAI 





FAR EASTERN PROBLEM 


[Lectures on the Harris Foundation 1925] 


By 


H. G. W. WOODHEAD, C.B.E. 
Editor of “The Peking and Tientsin Times,” and of 
“The China Year Book” 


JULEAN ARNOLD 


American Commercial Attaché at Peking, China 


HENRY KITTREDGE NORTON 
Author of “The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia” 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO - ILLINOIS 


CoPYRIGHT 1926 By 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


All Rights Reserved 


Published January 1926 


Composed and Printed By 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


The Harris Foundation Lectures at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago have been made possible 
through the generosity of the heirs of Norman 
Wait Harris and Emma Gale Harris, who donated 
to the University a fund to be known as “The 
Norman Wait Harris Memorial Foundation” on 
January 27, 1923. The letter of gift contains the 
following statement: 

It is apparent that a knowledge of world-affairs was never 
of more importance to Americans than today. The spirit of 
distrust which pervades the Old World is not without its 
effect upon our own country. How to combat this disintegrat- 
ing tendency is a problem worthy of the most serious thought. 
Perhaps one of the best methods is the promotion of a better 
understanding of other nations through wisely directed 
educational effort. 

The purpose of the Foundation shall be the promotion 
of a better understanding on the part of American citizens of 
the other peoples of the world, thus establishing a basis for 
improved international relations and a more enlightened 
world-order. The aim shall always be to give accurate 
information, not to propagate opinion. 


In fulfilment of this object a First Institute 
was held at the University of Chicago in the sum- 
mer of 1924, and the public lectures delivered by 


{ vii } 


PREFACE 


the foreign scholars invited to the Institute were 
published: Germany in Transition, by Herbert 
Kraus; The Stabilization of Europe, by Charles De 
Visscher; and The Occident and the Orient, by Sir 
Valentine Chirol. 

For the Second Institute, held in the summer of 
1925, the topic selected for discussion was the Far 
Fast, and again the public lectures delivered as 
part of the work of the Institute are published in 
essentially their original form. This volume, en- 
titled Occidental Interpretations of the Far Eastern 
Problem, gives the lectures of Mr. H. G. W. Wood- 
head, C.B.E., an Englishman of twenty years’ 
residence in China where he was editor of the 
Peking and Tientsin Times and of the China Year 
Book; of Mr. Julean Arnold, American Consul or 
Commercial Attaché in China since 1902, and 
editor of the Commercial Year Book of China; and 
of Mr. H. K. Norton, author of The Far Eastern 
Kepublic of Siberia. A second volume, Oriental 
Interpretations of the Far Eastern Problem, contains 
the lectures of Count Michimasa Soyeshima, grad- 
uate of Cambridge University, England, and form- 
er member of the House of Peers of Japan; and 
of Dr. P. W. Kuo, President of Southeastern Uni- 
versity, Nanking, China. 


August 1, 1925 


[ viii } 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-Day CHINA 


By H. G. W. Woodhead 

I. THe Cutnese REPvuBLic . 
II. Present State or CHIna 
Il. ExTraTERRITORIALITY 
IV. Cutna’s Foreicn RELATIONS 


Cuina’s Economic RESouRCES 


By Fulean Arnold 


Tue RussIANS IN THE Far East . 


By Henry Kittredge Norton 


APPENDIX 
LEADING STATESMEN OF Mopern CHINA . 


INDEX 


[ ix ] 


PAGE 


201 


233 
249 


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PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 
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THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 


I have been asked to give you in my first lecture 
a survey of the history of the Chinese Republic. It 
must, if compressed into a single lecture, neces- 
sarily be brief, and in some respects inadequate. 

The Revolution as a result of which China was 
transformed from an absolute monarchy to a nom- 
inal republic broke out in the autumn of 1g11, 
but to understand why it occurred, and why it was 
successful, it is necessary to refer briefly to the 
events of the previous thirteen years. 

The Emperor Kwang Hsu succeeded to the 
throne on the death of T’ung Chih, in January, 
1875, at the age of five. For the first few years of 
his reign the regency was in the hands of the late 
Emperor’s mother, and the Dowager Empress Tzu 
An. The latter died in 1881, leaving the sole 
regency in the masterful hands of Tzu Hsi, thence- 
forward known as the Empress Dowager. She 
ruled autocratically until 1889 when she, nomi- 
nally at any rate, went into retirement, though 
actually retaining by roundabout methods the 
power of appointing and dismissing the highest 
officials in the government. The war with Japan 


[3] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


(1894-95), resulting in disaster and humiliation for 
China, aroused widespread discontent, which was 
intensified by Russia’s occupation of Port Arthur 
and the grant of territorial leases to Germany, 
Great Britain, and France, in 1897-98. 

Some of the ablest officials of the empire recog- 
nized the necessity of wholesale reform if China was 
to retain her national independence. The Emperor 
himself was converted to this point of view. His 
tutor, Weng Tung-ho, and other progressive offi- 
cials around him were responsible for bringing to 
his attention a Cantonese reformer, K’ang Yu-wel, 
who was born in 1858, and who, though he had 
never left China, had been deeply impressed by the 
achievements of Peter the Great and the awaken- 
ing of Japan. K’ang Yu-weli, according to his own 
statements of what occurred, was only once re- 
ceived in audience by the Emperor.* But he made 
a deep impression, and between June 11 and 
September 16, 1898, at his instigation the Emperor 
promulgated some scores of reform decrees, aiming 
at the reorganization of the administration, fi- 
nances, education, army, public justice, and the 
development of railways and mines.? The first re- 
form decrees caused alarm among the conservative 


* China Mail, Oct. 7, 1898. 


2J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse, China under the Empress 
Dowager, chap. xiii. 
[4] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


elements, Chinese and Manchu, and the Empress 
Dowager, though at first not openly opposing the 
Emperor, adopted precautions which were later to 
frustrate all his efforts. As early as June 12 she 
arranged for the appointment of Jung Lu, a Man- 
chu and a staunch adherent of hers, to the vice- 
royalty of Chihli, thus securing control over the 
modern-trained troops in that province. 

K’ang Yu-wei was convinced that the only 
hope for China was the introduction of a constitu- 
tional monarchy. It is noteworthy that it was 
at this—the reform period—that Chang Chih- 
tung, one of the ablest and most influential of 
China’s viceroys, published a work entitled Learn, 
which sold by the millions, and the object of which 
was to bring about reforms from above also, instead 
of awaiting a revolution from below. He did not 
believe that a republic was practicable, propheti- 
cally stating that, with unrestrained liberty 
the scholar would always sit at meat, the farmer would pay 
no taxes, the merchant would garner unbounded wealth, the 
workman would strike for higher wages, the proletariat would 
plunder and rob, the son would disobey the father, the stu- 
dent would not follow the teacher, the wife would not obey 
the husband, the low would not defer to the high, the strong 
would oppress the weak, and mankind would soon be anni- 
hilated.* 

t Morse, International Relations, 111, 136-37. 


[5] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


In regard to the Emperor’s reform decrees 
Morse states: 


Provided that reform was to begin at the top and not at 
the foundation, no fault can be found with this list of reforms. 
Every one was sound, every one struck at a manifest evil, and 
every one was capable of being carried into effect; but the 
whole structure of reform by Decree was a pyramid standing 
on its apex." 


The opposition of the conservative elements 
convinced the Emperor that the success of his 
program must depend upon military support. It is 
alleged that he sought the assistance of Yuan 
Shih-kai, then judicial commissioner of Chihli, who 
had in 1895 been appointed director general of 
army reorganization, and directed him to assassi- 
nate Jung Lu at Tientsin, lead the modern army to 
the capital, and imprison the Empress Dowager. 
According to this version, Yuan Shih-ka1 im- 
mediately proceeded to Tientsin and revealed the 
Emperor’s plans to Jung Lu, who hurried to the 
capital and told the Empress Dowager what was 
afoot, with the result that a countercoup was ar- 
ranged, and the Emperor, while on the way to per- 
form some sacrificial rites, was suddenly seized and 
carried off to the ocean palace, where he remained 
a close prisoner for the greater part of the rest of 


™ Morse, op. cit., p. 139. 


[6] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


his life.t Yuan’s own version of the incident is that 
he was requested by certain reformers to assassi- 
nate Jung Lu, but that they were unable to produce 
the Emperor’s authority, nor did His Majesty even 
refer to the matter at a subsequent private audi- 
ence. When he arrived in Tientsin, however, he was 
immediately taxed by Jung Lu with having come 
down for the purpose of assassinating him.? The 
fact remains that the Emperor attributed the 
humiliations of his later years to Yuan Shih-ka1, 
and is reported, on his deathbed, to have ordered 
his execution.3 

The reform movement was temporarily crushed, 
the reformers were scattered or executed, and re- 
action won the day, with its aftermath of the 
Boxer madness of 1900. The drastic action of the 
foreign powers, however, convinced even the Em- 
press Dowager that reform or a semblance of re- 
form was necessary if the dynasty was to retain its 
position, and between Igo1 and 1905 attempts were 
made to introduce many of the reforms promul- 
gated in 1898. A commission to study constitu- 
tional methods was sent abroad in 1905, and re- 
ported in 1907. In 1908 a nine-year program of 

t Bland and Backhouse, op. cit., pp. 202 ff. 

2 Percy H. B. Kent, The Passing of the Manchus, p. 19. 

3 Bland and Backhouse, op. cit., p. 460. 


[7] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


constitutional preparation was promulgated, to 
culminate, in 1916-17, in the issue of constitutional 
laws and elections to the upper and lower houses of 
the legislature. It is noteworthy that it was estimat- 
ed that during the seventh year (1914-15) I per cent 
and during the ninth year (1916-17) 5 per cent 
of the population should be able to read and 
write.? 

The Empress Dowager and the Emperor 
Kwang Hsu both died in November, 1908, and 
the Emperor’s nephew, P’u Yi, ascended the throne 
under the title of Hsuan Tung, with his father as 
regent. He was then a boy of three years of age. 

Although the regent had been abroad—he was 
sent to Berlin to apologize for the murder of the 
German minister in Peking, after the Boxer out- 
break—he failed completely to appreciate the signs 
of the times, and instead of pushing forward the 
program of reform made concessions to public 
opinion only when public clamor assumed danger- 
ous proportions. He dismissed, and but for foreign 
representations, would probably have executed, 
Yuan Shih-kai. He affronted public opinion by ap- 
pointing his own relatives and other Manchus— 
many of them notoriously corrupt—to the highest 
offices in the government. And such concessions as 

1 China Year Book (1912), chap. xxi; ibid. (1925), pp. 615 ff. 


[8] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


he made under pressure from the people were gen- 
erally stultified by the manner in which they were 
granted. The new provincial assemblies, which met 
for the first time in 1909, gave a tremendous 1m- 
petus to the agitation for an earlier grant of con- 
stitutional government, and eventually resulted in 
an acceleration of the reform program, it being an- 
nounced that the national Parliament would be 
convened in 1913 instead of in 1917. The demand 
that the Grand Council should be replaced by a 
cabinet was also conceded, but Prince Ching, an 
elderly Manchu clansman, with an unsavory repu- 
tation, was appointed the first premier, and the 
presidents of the boards of interior, navy, finance, 
agriculture, industries and commerce, war, justice, 
colonies, and the general staff and advisory council 
were all Manchus.? 

In so far, however, as the Revolution can be 
attributed to a single cause, it was due to the 
government’s attempts at centralization. Although 
the Manchu emperor was an absolute monarch, 1n 
whose hands rested the appointment of officials 
throughout the country, in actual practice the 
provinces enjoyed a large measure of independence. 
In i911 the central government concluded two 
large gold loans with foreign-banking groups, the 

™ Li Un-bing, Outlines of Chinese History, p. 631. 


19] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


first of which was to be used for the reorganization 
of China’s currency and the second for railway 
construction. The Hukuang Railway loan of six 
million pounds sterling was to be expended on 
the construction of trunk railways from Hankow 
to Szechwan and Hankow to Canton. Both in 
Szechwan and Kwangtung, however, provincial 
companies had been spasmodically engaged in 
railway construction. They had raised, and for the 
most part wasted, enormous sums, but this did 
not prevent them from opposing bitterly a transac- 
tion which aimed at nationalizing China’s trunk 
railways and bringing them all under the control of 
the central government. What was unquestion- 
ably, from the national point of view, a sound pro- 
ject led to open defiance of the government, and 
eventually to revolution. 

There had been revolutionary outbreaks in 
Canton in April, 1911. The signature of the Hu- 
kuang Railway contract was followed by a general 
strike, which developed into a revolt, in Szechwan. 
The viceroy’s yamen at Chengtu was attacked on 
September 7, and the entire province may be said 
to have been in revolt when, on October g, a bomb 
explosion in the Russian concession at Hankow, in 
Hupeh province, became the signal for a general 
uprising. This bomb explosion was accidental. The 


[ 10 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


premises were raided, and found to contain revolu- 
tionary flags and literature (including, it 1s said, 
a list of disaffected officers and men in the local 
military forces) and explosives. Knowing the fate 
that awaited them if they remained inactive, the 
revolutionaries took immediate action. A number 
of troops mutinied, and occupied the gates of 
Wuchang on the night of October 10. The Manchu 
viceroy and the local military commander had to 
take refuge on a warship. The revolution which 
was to result in the overthrow of the dynasty had 
begun. None of the local revolutionaries, however, 
was anxious to assume the leadership, which was 
forced upon Li Yuan-hung, a cavalry colonel on 
the viceroy’s staff. He had not been a member of 
the revolutionary party, but accepted command, 
and retained it until the actual control of the move- 
ment passed into the hands of the revolutionary 
committee at Shanghai. Hanyang and Hankow 
were occupied on the eleventh and twelfth of 
October, respectively. 

It is unnecessary to dwell at length upon the 
course of the Revolution, and I propose here only 
to mention its salient features. When it broke out, 
some thirty thousand of China’s modern-trained 
troops had just been assembled at Yungpingfu in 
Chihli for the autumn maneuvers. The maneuvers 


{11} 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


were immediately canceled, and most of the troops 
were dispatched to Hankow by rail. On October 
14, the Prince Regent, by this time thoroughly 
alarmed at the course of events, recalled Yuan 
Shih-kai, who was still in retirement in his native 
province, and appointed him viceroy of the Huku- 
ang provinces (Hupeh and Hunan) and generalis- 
simo of the naval and military forces. Yuan Shih- 
kai was by no means eager to accept this appoint- 
ment, pleading that his leg—an affection which had 
been the pretext for his dismissal in 1909—had not 
yet healed, and it was only after he had been given 
more extensive powers, and peremptorily urged to 
disregard his illness, that he accepted the appoint- 
ment. Had he really had his heart in the cause, and 
been adequately financed, there is little doubt that 
he could have suppressed the revolt before it at- 
tained serious proportions. For Hankow and Han- 
yang were reoccupied without great difficulty by 
the end of November, rendering Wuchang, the 
revolutionary headquarters, untenable, and induc- 
ing the revolutionaries to sue for peace. Yuan 
Shih-kai showed no eagerness to exploit these suc- 
cesses, and agreed to an armistice on December 3. 
He had returned to Peking as premier on Novem- 
ber 13, to find that the regent had agreed to a new 
constitution adopted by the national assembly at 


[ 12] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


the end of October.’ On December 6 his old enemy, 
the Prince Regent, resigned, and Yuan Shih-kai 
was supreme. The issue then became one of wheth- 
er China should retain the monarchy in any form 
or become a republic. Yuan Shih-kai personally 
favored a constitutional monarchy, but, as events 
proved, was not prepared to fight for this solution 
if another could be found which left him in supreme 
control, and made reasonable provision for the 1m- 
perial family. 

At the beginning of December the revolution- 
ists were divided roughly into two camps—the 
Wuchang group, led by Li Yuan-hung, and the 
Shanghai Committee, whose spokesmen were Wu 
Ting-fang and Wen Tsung-yao, and which issued a 
flood of plausible manifestoes, compiled by foreign 
sympathizers. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who has been de- 
scribed as the “‘Father of the Revolution,” was in 
Europe when the Wuchang outbreak occurred, and 
did not reach Shanghai until December 25, a week 
after the Peace Conference had opened in that 
city. Three days later he was “elected” president 
of the republic by the revolutionary council at 
Nanking. He assumed office on January I, IgI2. 

The part that Dr. Sun played in the Revolu- 
tion has formed a subject of considerable contro- 

* China Year Book (1925), p. 628. 


{ 13 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


versy ever since. He had been a notorious revolu- 
tionary agitator during the greater part of his life, 
having organized and participated in a number of 
abortive attacks upon the Canton authorities in 
his earlier years. But he would probably have re- 
mained unknown to foreigners but for the notoriety 
he gained by being kidnapped outside the Chinese 
legation in London, by orders of the Chinese 
minister, in October, 1896. It had been intended 
to ship him to China as a lunatic, and once there 
he would have been put to death. But he managed 
to communicate with Dr. (now Sir) James Cantlie, 
his old teacher, who informed the British Foreign 
Office, which secured his release. He remained 
abroad, constantly agitating, until the outbreak of 
the Revolution, and arrived in China when all the 
fighting was over. One of the men most competent 
to speak about his réle in the Revolution is Gen- 
eral (now Former President) Li Yuan-hung, who 
had this to say to a foreign-newspaper correspond- 
ent in July, 1913: 

The world has a false idea about Sun Yat-sen. He had 
nothing to do with the actual work of overthrowing the 
monarchy. The Revolution was finished when he reached 
China. I hardly heard of him except in a vague and general 
way, and did not know his political views, except that I had 


heard of his agitation. So far as I had thought about him at 
all, I had regarded him as a visionary. He arrived at Shanghai 


{ 14 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


at a moment when the Southern, or Republican, party had 
decided that some kind of government should nominally be 
formed with the capital at Nanking. This was done for moral 
effect in China and abroad. None of the real leaders of the 
Revolution, for various reasons, desired to take the position of 
provisional president, which we felt would be of short dura- 
tion. Sun Yat-sen, from being out of China for so long, was 
not associated with any faction here, his name was known 
abroad, and he seemed to suit the occasion. If he ever pro- 
vided any tangible aid to the real Revolution I did not know 
of it. His repute is largely founded on fiction.1 

When the Republican cabinet was formed at 
Nanking, Li Yuan-hung was ignored. The revolu- 
tionaries were uncompromising in their insistence 
upon the abdication of the Manchus, whose dif—i- 
culties were increasing, owing to their lack of funds 
and the lukewarmness of their supporters. The 
Gordian knot was cut by Yuan Shih-kai, who, 
when he found that Sun Yat-sen was prepared to 
resign in his favor, and that the Republicans were 
willing to grant liberal terms to the imperial house, 
prompted his military subordinates, headed by 
Tuan Chi-jui, to address telegraphic memorials to 
the throne urging abdication.?, The abdication 
edicts, drafted on February 3, were actually pro- 
mulgated on February 13, 1912,3 simultaneously 

* China Press, July 22, 1913. 

2 China Year Book (1913), p. 480. 

3 Ibid., pp. 481-83. 

PPp- 491—03 [rs] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


with the terms of favorable treatment, under which 
the Emperor was to retain his title, his property, 
and the privileges of a foreign sovereign, and re- 
ceive a pension of four million ¢ae/s per annum.* It 
was intended that he should remove from Peking 
to the summer palace, a few miles outside the city, 
but for one reason or another this plan was never 
carried out. It is noteworthy that the abdication 
edicts invested Yuan Shih-kai with full powers to 
organize a provisional Republican government. 
Dr. Sun resigned from the presidency on Feb- 
ruary 14, and Yuan Shih-kai was unanimously 
elected president by the Nanking National Coun- 
cilon February 15, but that body at the same time 
voted in favor of transferring the capital from Pe- 
king to Nanking. Li Yuan-hung was unanimously 
elected vice-president on February 20. A deputa- 
tion proceeded to Peking to invite Yuan Shih-kai 
to visit Nanking to take the oath of office, but a 
mutiny of the Third Division, possibly instigated 
for this very purpose, resulted in the abandonment 
of the project of transferring the capital. The Nan- 
king delegates themselves had to seek refuge in 
the legation quarter during the mutiny. Though 
unanimously elected provisional president, Yuan 
Shih-kai was by no means unanimously trusted by 
1 China Year Book (1913), p. 484, and ibid. (1925), p. 632. 


[ 16 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


the Nanking Council, which was composed of dele- 
gates appointed by the various Republican military 
governors, or tutuhs, and it proceeded, early in 
March, to draft and adopt a provisional constitu- 
tion,’ the main purpose of which was to limit the 
president’s powers. Even before the transfer of the 
Council to Peking toward the end of April, friction 
had occurred between it and the president over the 
allocation of cabinet posts, the Tungmenghui, or 
revolutionary party, desiring that their nominees 
should receive the portfolios of war and finance. 
To this arrangement President Yuan absolutely re- 
fused to agree, nominating his trusted lieuten- 
ant, Tuan Chi-jui, to the ministry of war, and 
Hsiung Hsi-ling, a Hunanese Republican, who was 
not, however, a member of the Tungmenghui, as — 
minister of finance. 

The transformation of China from an absolute 
monarchy to a nominal republic was effected with 
remarkably little bloodshed and material damage. 
There were local massacres of Manchus—notably 
at Sianfu in Shensi—and a few foreigners were 
killed in various centers. But both sides manifested 
an earnest desire to avoid giving the foreign powers 
any pretext for interference. Most of Hankow was 
burned down by the imperialist forces, and there 


t [bid., p. 633. 


17} 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


was, of course, a great deal of incendiarism and 
looting in various centers in which there was fight- 
ing or rioting. 

China became a republic two years before the 
date on which, according to the nine-year pro- 
eram of constitutional reform, 1 per cent of the 
population should have been able to read and 
write. In other words, the percentage of illiteracy 
was about 9g.’ And it should be emphasized that 
the republic came into being, not as a result of an 
overwhelming military victory of the revolutionary 
forces, but rather as the result of a compromise 
which left the executive power in the hands of one 
who had little sympathy with, or understanding of, 
the principles of modern democratic government, 
but who had a strong military following. 

Yuan Shih-kai assumed office as provisional 
president with certain manifest advantages. He 
had the reputation of being a capable and progres- 
sive official. He stood high in the estimation of 
foreigners—with the possible exception of the Jap- 
anese, with whom he had come into conflict in 
Korea—as a result of his friendly attitude during 
the Boxer upheaval. He had the loyal support of 
the generals and most of the officers of the modern 


1 China Year Book (1925), pp. 616-17. 


{ 18 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


army, whose organization and training had been 
carried out under his personal supervision. He 
knew his countrymen and how to deal with them. 
And he had, as it proved, a loyal colleague in 
General Li Yuan-hung, who remained at Wuchang 
and did his utmost to maintain order in the Yang- 
tze. On the other hand, he was from the outset dis- 
trusted by the Republicans, whose main strength 
came from the south. 

The two problems requiring most urgent atten- 
tion were disbandment and finance. Mushroom 
armies which had sprung up all over the country 
during the Revolution, for the most part undisci- 
plined and unpaid, constituted a serious danger to 
public peace. Excepting the customs administra- 
tion which, being under foreign control, remained 
intact throughout the upheaval, all sources of 
revenue had been appropriated by the provinces. 
The central government was unable to meet its 
foreign obligations, or to raise the revenue nec- 
essary for its own maintenance. The Republican 
government approached the Peking representatives 
of the quadruple group (composed of American, 
British, French, and German financiers) within a 
few days of abdication, and as early as February 28 
the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, 


{19 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


on behalf of the group, advanced two million ¢ae/s 
to the government at Nanking.’ Negotiations then 
proceeded for a comprehensive reorganization 
loan, which were making some headway when it 
was discovered that, notwithstanding the fact that 
the option to make further advances had been 
granted to the quadruple group, a loan for one 
million sterling with the option of taking up an- 
other nine millions had been concluded with a 
Belgian syndicate on March 15. Negotiations with 
the quadruple group were thereupon broken off, to 
be renewed in May, interrupted again in June, and 
not to be consummated until April 26, 1913, by 
which time the American bankers had withdrawn 
and Japanese and Russian interests were admitted. 

The stumbling-block was the demand of the 
bankers, with the support of their respective gov- 
ernments, for foreign supervision of the expendi- 
ture of the proceeds, and of the collection of the 
revenues pledged as security. Supervision in any 
form was repulsive to Yuan Shih-kai who would 
have liked to expend the money as he thought fit, 
and equally repugnant to the Republicans, who 
regarded it as an infringement of China’s sovereign 
rights. The loan amounted to twenty-five millions 


t For details of Loan Negotiations, see China Year Book (1913), 
pp. 348 ff, and ibid. (1914), pp- 379 #. 


[ 20 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


sterling, of which three millions were earmarked for 
disbandment expenses. The loan agreement* fur- 
ther stipulated that a foreign associate chief in- 
spector, with a number of foreign district 1n- 
spectors, was to be appointed to the salt adminis- 
tration, whose revenues were pledged as security, 
and that foreign advisers were to be employed in 
the Audit Department and the Bureau of National 
Loans. 

Meanwhile there had been frequent collisions 
between Yuan Shih-kai and the National Council, 
since the removal of the latter to Peking, as well as 
a number of cabinet changes. Sun Yat-sen, who 
had propounded a visionary scheme for the con- 
struction of seventy-five thousand miles of railways 
within ten years, at a cost of six hundred millions 
sterling,” was placated for the moment with the 
post of director of the National Railway Corpora- 
tion, with headquarters at Shanghai, whose duty 
was to be the negotiation of railway loans with for- 
eign financiers. Other fantastic proposals he put 
forward about this time included a project for 
raising an army of five million men to conquer 
Russia, who had availed herself of China’s difficul- 
ties to initiate an aggressive policy in outer Mon- 
golia. He also proposed the issue of unlimited, 


1 Tbid., pp. 387 f.  —- ? Ibid. (1913), p. 187. 


{21 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


unsecured, and inconvertible paper currency, to 
meet China’s financial difficulties. 

Elections for the new bicameral legislature took 
place in December, 1912, and January, 1913. Ten 
senators were to be elected by each provisional 
assembly, in addition to fifty-four representing the 
outer dependencies, the Central Education Society, 
and Chinese residing abroad. The country was to 
return one member for each eight hundred thousand 
of the population to the House of Representatives, 
by means of a complicated system of double elec- 
tion, for which the necessary organization did not 
exist. The result was that the House of Repre- 
sentatives contained a number of professional 
agitators and demagogues, who had bribed or 
bluffed their way into the legislature. The Tung- 
menghui had, in 1912, combined with four other 
Republican parties to form the Kuomintang, which 
was the strongest individual party in both houses, 
claiming 123 out of 274 senators and 269 out of 596 
representatives. Sung Chiao-jen, the parliamen- 
tary leader of the party, was murdered, in circum- 
stances which threw suspicion on the Minister of 
the Interior, on the eve of his departure from 
Shanghai, on March 21, 1913, and Parliament 
therefore met in an electrical atmosphere on April 
8, intimating that the presence of Yuan Shih-kai to 


{ 22 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


perform the opening ceremony would be unwel- 
come, and refusing to permit the reading of his 
inaugural message. 

The conclusion of the reorganization loan, with- 
out referring it to Parliament—a course which 
Yuan Shih-kai maintained was justified by the fact 
that its main provisions had been approved by the 
National Council in the preceding December’— led 
to a fresh crisis, and relations between the Presi- 
dent and legislature grew steadily worse. Parlia- 
ment discredited itself to a very large extent by the 
numerous disorderly scenes which occurred in both 
houses. By July the attitude of some of the Kuo- 
mintang futuhs in the southern provinces had be- 
come so defiant that Yuan Shih-kai felt compelled 
to order their removal, a step which was the signal 
for a rising which spread down the Yangtze Valley 
and to Canton, and became known as the Second 
Revolution. Chang Hsun, the doughty old warrior 
who had defended Nanking in 1911, and subse- 
quently withdrawn his army virtually intact across 
the river to Pukow, was intrusted with the re- 
capture of Nanking, which he effected without 
much difficulty. And elsewhere the northern forces 
were uniformly victorious. The rebellion was 
crushed, Sun Yat-sen and other Kuomintang lead- 


1 China Year Book (1914), Pp 379: 


{ 23 | 





OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ers were stripped of all their offices, proscribed, and 
fled abroad. And Parliament, chastened by this 
manifestation of Yuan Shih-kai’s strength, meekly 
adopted the new presidential election law," and 
elected him formal president in time to be inaugu- 
rated on the second anniversary of the Revolution, 
October 10, 1913, by which date recognition of the 
republic had been accorded by all the powers. L1 
Yuan-hung was elected vice-president. 

The Kuomintang hoped to regain by the new 
constitution what they had lost as the result of the 
summer revolt. Yuan Shih-kai, however, was de- 
termined not to submit to parliamentary control, 
and invited the opinions of the provincial mili- 
tarists on the completed draft. They, of course, 
supported him, and in some cases demanded the 
dissolution of Parliament. On November 4 the 
Kuomintang was proscribed as a seditious organ- 
ization, and all members of the party in the legis- 
lature were unseated, and ordered to be sent away 
from the capital. Parliament, unable to secure a 
quorum in their absence, languished, inactive, un- 
til its formal dissolution in January, 1914. Legisla- 
tive functions were thereupon intrusted to a nomi- 
nated council of state, which drafted a constitution 
more in accordance with Yuan Shih-kai’s ideas,? 

* China Year Book (1925), p. 657. 2 Ibid., pp. 665 ff. 


[ 24 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


increasing the presidential term from five to ten 
years, and virtually leaving it to the President to 
secure his own re-election or the election of his own 
nominee. 

The Great War, which broke out in August, 
Igt4, for the time being absorbed attention in 
Europe and America. China was brought into its 
orbit by the joint Anglo-Japanese attack upon 
Tsingtao, which, with the Shantung Railway, re- 
mained in Japanese hands until after the Washing- 
ton Conference. Except America, which for the 
moment was not prepared to go farther than pro- 
testing, and issuing warnings, none of the powers 
was willing to incur Japanese hostility by interfer- 
ing with her activities in China which, early in 
1915, assumed a most menacing form. The noto- 
rious Twenty-one Demands,' delivered in January, 
if acceded to iz toto, would have had the effect of 
converting China into a Japanese protectorate. 
Yuan Shih-kai was powerless in face of the Jap- 
anese ultimatum of May 7, 1915, by means of 
which all but Group 5 of Japan’s demands were 
enforced. 

It had been obvious for some time that Yuan 
Shih-kai was working for a monarchical restoration. 
He had revived the state worship of heaven and 

t Tbid. (1921). 2 Ibid. 


{ 25 } 





OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Confucius in 1914, at the ceremonies connected 
with which he attired himself in robes similar to 
those worn by former emperors. And in the sum- 
mer of IgI5 a movement was started for the con- 
version of the republic into a monarchy, with Yuan 
Shih-kai as emperor. The campaign was arranged 
from Peking, the various provincial authorities re- 
ceiving secret instructions to petition the President 
to ascend the throne. Arrangements were also 
made for a packed citizens’ conference, which was 
to memoralize to the same effect. The Japanese, 
however, had not forgotten their old grudge against 
Yuan Shih-kai, and at the instance of the Japanese 
government joint representations against the pro- 
posed change were made by the British, Russian, 
and Japanese ministers. Yuan’s campaign man- 
agers responded by staging demonstrations in 
favor of the monarchy in the provinces. The date 
for the coronation and the ceremonies to be em- 
ployed in connection therewith were actually pro- 
mulgated when on December 25, Tsai Ao, a Re- 
publican leader, hoisted the standard of revolt in 
Yunnan. The movement rapidly spread, until 
practically the whole of Southern and Western 
China was in rebellion. Moreover, Yuan’s military 
lieutenants, who had given him unflinching support 
as president, were not prepared to fight to make 


[ 26 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


him emperor. The situation became so grave that 
the coronation was postponed, and, eventually, the 
monarchical project was abandoned. But the south 
was not to be placated by this volte face, and the 
crisis was only solved by Yuan Shih-kai’s death on 
June 6, 1916. 

He was succeeded as president, as provided by 
the Nanking constitution and the Presidential 
Election Law of 1913, by General Li Yuan-hung, 
the vice-president, who at once reconvened the old 
Parliament. Feng Kuo-chang, one of Yuan’s lieu- 
tenants, was elected vice-president, but remained 
at Nanking. Tuan Chi-jui, who had also been asso- 
ciated with: Yuan Shih-kai in the training of the 
new army, and was minister of war in the first Re- 
publican cabinet, became premier. Thus the domi- 
nation of the Peiyang party (so called since it was 
composed of officers of the Peiyang army) was 
assured, although its chief was dead. Dissensions, 
however, soon occurred which were to produce 
serious consequences in later years. The Peiyang 
party split into two factions, one of which, led by 
the vice-president, General Feng Kuo-chang (and 
after his death by Tsao Kun), became known as 
the Chihli party, and the other, led by Tuan Chi- 
jui, as the Anhwei, and subsequently, the Anfu 


party. 
{ 27 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


America early in 1917 broke off diplomatic 
relations with the Central Powers, and invited 
China to follow suit, which she did. The same in- 
vitation was repeated when the United States de- 
clared war. President Li Yuan-hung was opposed 
to war, fearing that it would strengthen the hands 
of the militarists. Japan, who had formerly vetoed 
China’s intervention on the side of the Allies, sup- 
ported it on this occasion after extracting from 
Britain, France, Italy, and Russia a secret under- 
taking to support her claims in Shantung and the 
North Pacific at the Peace Conference.’ Tuan Chi- 
jui, the premier, favored war, as also did the major- 
ity of the northern Tuchuns. Parliament was not 
averse from hostilities but wished to take the entire 
credit for declaring war. Friction between Presi- 
dent and Premier increased until the latter was dis- 
missed, whereupon his military supporters rallied 
to his aid, and united in denouncing Parliament 
and demanding its dissolution, the draft of the con- 
stitution being made the pretext for this action. At 
this juncture, General Chang Hsun, of Nanking 
fame, offered to mediate, and was invited to Peking 
by the President. He came up to the capital with 
his pigtailed army, and immediately insisted upon 
the dissolution of Parliament, to which President 

1 China Year Book (1921). 


[ 28 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


Li Yuan-hung had to agree. In August, 1917, Gen- 
eral Chang Hsun effected a sudden coup, replacing 
the Manchu emperor, who was still in residence in 
the imperial palace, on the throne, and proclaim- 
ing the overthrow of the republic. Chang Hsun 
maintained to the end of his life that this coup was 
effected with the knowledge and approval of his 
fellow-militarists. 

Tuan Chi-jui immediately took the field against 
the monarchist leader, and after some hesitation 
Tsao Kun and the other northern Tuchuns rallied 
to his aid. The monarchy was overthrown within a 
fortnight, and General Chang Hsun had to seek 
refuge in the Dutch legation. 

As soon as news of the restoration reached the 
south, preparations were made for a so-called 
“punitive expedition.” The southerners were not 
placated by Tuan Chi-jui’s prompt action, but re- 
mained sullen and defiant. President Li Yuan- 
hung, who had also taken refuge in the legation 
quarter, refused to reassume the presidency after 
Chang Hsun’s discomfiture, and was succeeded by 
General Feng Kuo-chang, the vice-president. Tuan 
Chi-jui once more became premier, but 1t was the 
dissensions between him and his following and the 
new president that led to a split in the Peiyang 
party. During 1918, Tuan, as leader of the Anfu 


[ 29 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


party, attained the height of his power, and his 
subordinates abused it to indulge in an orgy of 
borrowing from Japan, participation in the Great 
War being used as the pretext for large arms deals 
(on credit) with, and loans from, the Japanese. Be- 
tween January and December, 1918, about 250,- 
000,000 yer were borrowed from Japan. Tuan Chi- 
jui and his fellow-Tuchuns organized a so-called 
“Tuchuns’ parliament,’ composed of their own 
nominees, many of whom would never have dared 
to show their faces in the provinces they professed 
to represent, and this body was induced to elect 
Hsu Shih-ch’ang, a sworn brother of Yuan Shih-kai 
and his Secretary of State, as president of the re- 
public, in place of Feng Kuo-chang. The south- 
erners refused to recognize the Tuchuns’ parlia- 
ment or the new President, and attempted to or- 
ganize a so-called “constitutional government” in 
Canton, with the support of two or three hundred 
members of the old Parliament. 

The new President was in favor of reunification 
by peaceful means, but his peace mandates were 
ignored. In December the principal powers joined 
in making strong representations to China against 
perpetuating internal strife, as a result of which a 
domestic peace conference was convened in Shang- 
hai, early in 1919. It proved fruitless, however, and 


[ 30 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


the Chinese delegation at Versailles contained dele- 
gates from the Canton as well as the Peking gov- 
ernment. Japan’s pretensions at Versailles aroused 
a wave of indignation throughout the country. The 
Peking students got out of hand, attacked and 
assaulted the most notorious of the so-called “‘na- 
tional traitors” or pro-Japanese officials, and drove 
them into retirement. Public opinion in China 
compelled the Chinese delegation to refuse to sign 
a treaty recognizing Japan’s claims in Shantung. 
The intervention of students of all ages and both 
sexes in domestic politics and foreign affairs dates 
from this time, and has since manifested itself in 
many undesirable ways. 

The quarrel between the Anfu and the Chihli 
leaders came to a head in 1920. To consolidate 
their position in the north, the Anfu leaders en- 
deavored to dislodge all militarists who were not 
in sympathy with them, and especially Tsao Kun, 
the Chihli Tuchun. Wu Pei-fu, his subordinate, 
brought his troops north from Hunan to aid his 
chief, and after a futile attempt at mediation by 
the Manchurian Tuchun, Chang Tso-lin, there was 
no alternative to war. The Chihli leaders unques- 
tionably had public opinion behind them when 
they demanded the dismissal of “Little Hsu,” 
commander of the Anfu forces, and one of the 


[31 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


most notorious of the pro-Japanese officials. “Little 
Hsu”’ (Hsu Shu-tseng) was dismissed by the Presi- 
dent, whereupon Tuan Chi-jui retaliated by de- 
manding the censure of Tsao Kun and the dis- 
missal of Wu Pei-fu. To this, also, the President 
weakly agreed. Thereupon Tsao Kun, egged on by 
his strong-willed subordinate, accepted the chal- 
lenge. War broke out around the capital, and Wu 
Pei-fu’s army emerged victorious. The Anfu party 
went to pieces. All of its leaders except Tuan Chi- 
jui, to whom none of the Chihli party and its allies 
displayed any particular animosity, sought refuge 
in the Japanese legation. Chang Tso-lin brought 
an army inside the great wall, arriving after the real 
fighting was over, and at once conferred with Tsao 
Kun in regard to the exploitation of their victory. 

From this period dates the animosity between 
Chang Tso-lin and Wu Pei-fu which was to produce 
two more civil wars. I saw Chang Tso-lin shortly 
after his arrival in Tienstin, and although all the 
fighting had been done by troops under Wu Pei- 
fu’s leadership and the victory was his, the Man- 
churian Tuchun spoke slightingly of him, and de- 
clared that as a subordinate military commander 
General Wu had no right to interfere in politics. 
A marriage between the families of Tsao Kun and 
Chang Tso-lin was supposed to set a seal upon their 


{ 32 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


friendship, and the two war-lords proceeded to 
Peking together to instal a government of their own 
selection. Meanwhile, as the result of a civil war in 
the south, Sun Yat-sen, who had been living and 
intriguing in the French concession in Shanghai, 
returned to Canton to organize another revolution- 
ary government. He denounced Chang Tso-lin and 
Tsao Kun, repudiated the authority of Peking, and 
had himself elected president of the republic by a 
parliamentary rump, in April, 1921. There was 
constant friction over cabinet appointments in 
Peking during this year, and in December Chang 
Tso-lin revisited Peking, and in complete disre- 
gard of the wishes of Tsao Kun and Wu Pei-fu in- 
stalled Liang Shih-yi, who had been responsible for 
financing Yuan Shih-kai’s monarchical campaign, 
as premier. Tsao Kun ostensibly remained indiffer- 
ent, but Wu Pei-fu publicly denounced Liang Shih- 
yi and demanded his dismissal. The Premier then 
went upon sick-leave, refusing to resign his post 
unless he were publicly whitewashed by the Presi- 
dent. 

In April, 1922, Chang Tso-lin announced his in- 
tention of suppressing Wu Pei-fu. His armies in 
and around Peking were heavily reinforced, and 
General Wu advanced to the attack at the end of 
that month. Tsao Kun sat on the fence but allowed 


{ 33 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


General Wu Pei-fu to use his troops, and the Chris- 
tian general (Feng Yu-hsiang) also came to his 
assistance from Shensi, suppressing a revolt in 
Honan on the way, and reaching the vicinity of 
Peking with his Eleventh Division in time for the 
decisive battle. After a number of reverses, Gen- 
eral Wu Pei-fu won a decisive victory by an out- 
flanking movement south of Peking, and the 
Manchurian army retreated down the railway, 
with considerable loss, eventually making a stand 
at Shanhaikuan, on the Chihli-Manchurian fron- 
tier, whence the Chihli forces were unable to dis- 
lodge it. After several weeks of indecisive fight- 
ing a truce was arranged, by which each army 
withdrew some distance from its side of the great 
wall. Chang Tso-lin returned to Mukden, where 
he proclaimed his independence of the central 
government, and concentrated his efforts upon 
reorganizing his army. 

President Hsu Shih-chang, whose conduct 
throughout the crisis had been contemptible, re- 
signed on June 2, 1922, and the victors then applied 
pressure to General Li Yuan-hung, to induce him 
to reassume the presidency. This he did with the 
utmost reluctance, and only after receiving uncon- 
ditional pledges of support from Tsao Kun and Wu 


Pei-fu, and issuing a flaming denunciation of the 


1 34] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


Tuchun system. He endeavored to induce Wu Pei- 
fu to accept office as minister of war, but the latter 
absolutely declined this post, professing that he 
was a military man who could not participate in 
politics, and returning to his headquarters at 
Loyang, in Honan, to reorganize his army. From 
Loyang, however, he bombarded the central gov- 
ernment with protests and advice. 

President Li Yuan-hung reconvened the old 
Parliament on August 1. A few days later Dr. Sun 
Yat-sen, whose rule in Canton had been becoming 
more unpopular daily, escaped from that city in a 
British gunboat, and returned to Shanghai. The 
new cabinet was composed mainly of American and 
British-educated Chinese, who it was expected, 
would thus be given a chance of showing what they 
could do. But a conspiracy was already in the mak- 
ing to dislodge President Li and to secure the eleva- 
tion of Tsao Kun to the presidency. The first blow 
was struck toward the end of the year by the arrest, 
on what proved to be trumped-up charges, of the 
Minister of Finance, a distinguished lawyer who 
had been educated in England. He was kept in cus- 
tody for several months, and his colleagues in the 
cabinet naturally refused to remain in office. Gen- 
eral Chang Shao-tseng, who had been minister of 
war, was thereupon appointed premier, over a 


[35 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


cabinet composed, for the most part, of Tsao Kun’s 
adherents. 

Parliament was regularly subsidized from Pao- 
tingfu, Tsao Kun’s headquarters, to agitate against 
President Li, whose downfall was eventually 
brought about by the action of the Christian gen- 
eral. This militarist had been transferred from 
Honan to Peking. He insisted, early in June, 1923, 
upon the appointment of his own nominee to the 
post of chief of the Peking Octroz, the receipts from 
which were earmarked for the expenses of the Presi- 
dent’s palace, and when the President refused to 
make this appointment, General Feng’s troops and 
bodies of police and gendarmes demonstrated be- 
fore his palace and demanded their arrears of pay. 
The cabinet resigned, ostensibly because of the 
President’s refusal to appoint General Feng’s 
nominee, and it was impossible for the President to 
secure the services of another ministry. His tele- 
grams and correspondence were held up by the 
ministry of communications, and, on June 12, the 
Christian general and General Wang Huai-ching, 
who between them controlled all the troops in and 
around Peking, submitted their resignations. Nu- 
merous highly placed officials called upon the 
President, and urged him to resign. He was power- 
less under the circumstances. His valedictory man- 


[ 36 |} 





PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


dates were held up by the government printing- 
office. President Li left for Tientsin on June 13, 
1923, but on his arrival there his train was sur- 
rounded by the Chihli governor’s troops, and he 
was held a prisoner until he had handed over the 
presidential seals. The way was now open for the 
election of Tsao Kun. 

Parliament accepted President Li’s resignation 
by a standing vote, not daring to put it to the 
ballot, and in the absence of a legal quorum. Dur- 
ing the next few weeks Tsao Kun’s campaign man- 
agers were busy bargaining with the parliamen- 
tarians for their votes, and eventually it was ar- 
ranged that those who supported his candidature 
were to receive five thousand dollars apiece, double 
that sum being paid to the “whips” and certain 
favored legislators. The election took place on 
October 5, and President Tsao Kun assumed office 
on the tenth of that month, securing the recognt- 
tion of the foreign ministers in Peking by a piece of 
barefaced trickery in connection with the Lin- 
cheng outrage. A struggle for the premiership en- 
sued between the speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, who had been one of the most active of 
Tsao Kun’s supporters, and Kao Ling-wei, who 
had been minister of interior in the Chang Shao- 
tseng cabinet. It was not until January, 1924, that 


[ 37] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


a new premier, Mr. Sun Pao-ch’i, an elderly official 
with no political affiliations, who had been minister 
to France in 1902, was appointed. During the six 
months he was in office Mr. Sun found the situation 
hopeless, owing to cabinet dissensions on the gold- 
franc controversy with France. His colleagues had 
been selected for him by the clique surrounding the 
President, and were neither loyal nor helpful. On 
his resignation on July 2, Dr. W. W. Yen was nomi- 
nated premier, but no action was taken on this 
nomination until September 11, 1924, when the 
country was once more in the throes of civil war. 

The conflict on this occasion started in mid- 
China. To understand its origin it 1s necessary to 
retrace our steps for a few minutes and describe 
the military situation. While Tsao Kun had been 
scheming for and securing the presidency, Wu Pei- 
fu had been endeavoring to consolidate the military 
position of the Chihli party. His own or allied 
armies had gained control over the provinces of 
Szechwan, Hunan, and Fukien. Thus the Chihli 
party dominated all the provinces north of the 
Yangtze, except Manchuria, as well as Fukien, 
Kiangsi, Hupeh, and portions of Kwangsi and 
Kweichow. After the civil war of 1920 all the Anfu 
officials in the provinces were driven out of office 
with the exception of the Tuchun of Chekiang, 


{ 38 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


who not only retained control over that province 
but also over Shanghai, the commercial metropolis 
of China, which is situated in the province of 
Kiangsu. Although Shanghai owes its prosperity 
mainly to the existence of the international settle- 
ment and the French concession, which are under 
foreign control, it and its vicinity are the center of 
opium-smuggling at the mouth of the Yangtze, 
huge sums being made annually by the Chinese 
officials who connive at this trafic. The Kiangsu 
Tuchun, who was an adherent of Wu Pei-fu’s, had 
several times been on the verge of attempting to 
reoccupy Shanghai, but had previously desisted, 
owing to popular opposition to civil war in this 
neighborhood. On this occasion the admission of 
troops defeated by Wu Pei-fu’s subordinate in 
Fukien into Chekiang was made the pretext for 
hostilities. Every well-informed person in China 
knew that if hostilities started in Kiangsu they 
must spread to the north. The Chekiang Tuchun 
was eventually defeated, Shanghai being occupied 
by the Kiangsu forces in the middle of October. 
In the meantime, Chang Tso-lin had thrown 
down the gauntlet to President Tsao Kun and Wu 
Pei-fu, denouncing the ‘“‘wicked régime” for which 
they were responsible, and declaring that he felt it 
his bounden duty to “rid the country of the peo- 


I 39 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ple’s traitors.” The rival armies were concentrated 
over a wide front, extending from Jehol to the sea, 
near Shanhaikuan. On the Chihli side, Wu Pei-fu 
was in supreme command, the third army under 
the Christian general being stationed on the ex- 
treme left of the line, and Wu Pei-fu himself super- 
intending operations on the coast. The Manchurt- 
an army gained some initial successes in the center, 
and made some progress on the coast, but the issue 
still hung in the balance when, on October 23, 
Feng Yu-hsiang suddenly occupied the capital 
with his army, imprisoned the President, proscribed 
several of the cabinet ministers, and proclaimed his 
desire for peace. Wu Pei-fu was quite unprepared 
for this betrayal. He was making desperate efforts 
to consolidate his front on the coast when the news 
reached him, but immediately returned to Tientsin 
with a few hundred men, intending there to await 
reinforcements from Kiangsu and Shantung for an 
attempt to recover the capital. The Shantung Tu- 
chun, however, cut the railway on the northern and 
southern boundaries of the province, rendering the 
movement of troops by rail impossible, and Wu 
Pei-fu, on hearing that his army at Shanhaikuan 
had gone to pieces, had to escape by sea, making his 
way back to Honan via the Yangtze, and, when 
compelled to leave there by an attack from Shens1, 


[ 40 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


withdrawing to Hupeh, and eventually to Yochow, 
in Hunan, where he at present remains. 

The Christian general formed a provisional gov- 
ernment in Peking, which proceeded summarily to 
eject the Manchu Emperor from his palace, and to 
take over its contents under the pretense of inven- 
torying them, and deciding which was national and 
which was Manchu property. There is reason to 
fear that much of the palace treasure has since been 
removed and surreptitiously disposed of. The for- 
mer Emperor himself told me that this was so, and 
that he had refused even to be represented on the 
so-called “inventory commission.” His ejection 
from the palace, and the substitution for the favor- 
able treatment of 1912 of a new agreement’ under 
which the Emperor’s status and privileges were 
abolished, was, of course, a gross breach of faith, 
and was so described by Tang Shao-y1, who had 
been the imperial delegate at the 1912 Peace Con- 
ference, and first premier of the republic. The Em- 
peror took refuge in the Japanese legation, and 
eventually escaped to the Japanese concession in 
Tientsin. 

At the outset of the civil war in the north, 
Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian war-lord, had an- 
nounced his intention of installing Tuan Chi-jui, 


* China Year Book (1925), p. 844. 


[ 41 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the former leader of the Anfu party who had since 
been living in retirement at Tientsin as chief execu- 
tive. And after a conference at Tientsin, whither 
Chang Tso-lin had hurried with a large force after 
Wu Pei-fu’s army had been defeated, attended by 
Tuan Chi-jui, Chang Tso-lin, and the Christian 
general, Marshal Tuan proceeded to Peking to 
assume office as'the provisional chief executive. He 
convened a so-called ‘“‘reorganization conference, ’ 
which sat for several months, and accomplished 
nothing. He reinstated a number of the former 
Anfu politicians, and gave the defeated Chekiang 
Tuchun his revenge by sending him down to 
Kiangsu at the head of a Manchurian army, to 
eject his former adversary and to assume office as 
tupan, or “director of military affairs.” It is note- 
worthy that on this occasion Shanghai was in- 
cluded in the Kiangsu, and not the Chekiang, ad- 
ministration. 

While the rival war-lords had been settling their 
quarrels in the field in the north, Sun Yat-sen’s 
hold upon Canton was rapidly weakening. He had 
entered into close relations with the bolsheviks dur- 
ing the year, and initiated a reign of terror over 
the merchant classes, who resented his arbitrary 
measures of taxation and confiscation. A cadet 
academy, staffed by bolshevik instructors, was 


{ 42 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


founded at Canton, and a so-called Red Army was 
organized to overawe the merchants, who had a 
volunteer organization for their own protection. 
Matters came to a head in October when Sun Yat- 
sen ordered the suppression of the Merchant vol- 
unteers by force, and loosed his Red Army upon the 
city. Heavy artillery was used in the most thickly 
populated part of the city, some four hundred 
buildings were burned down, many others were 
looted, and the volunteers were defeated and dis- 
persed, with heavy loss of life. 

On the outbreak of the civil war in the north, 
Dr. Sun had joined in the chorus of denunciation 
of the Chihli party, and announced his intention of 
leading a punitive army against it. Like his pre- 
vious punitive expeditions, this one also fizzled out. 
And toward the end of the year Dr. Sun’s own posi- 
tion in Canton was so precarious that he welcomed 
the invitation to proceed north to confer with the 
triumvirate in control of Peking. He proceeded by 
steamer to Shanghai, and thence, via Japan, to 
Tientsin, taking advantage of every opportunity en 
route to denounce the imperialistic powers and to 
demand the cancellation of the so-called “unequal 
treaties’? and the abolition of the foreign conces- 
sions. At Tientsin he remained for several weeks in 
the Japanese concession, and it became known that 


[ 43 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


he was seriously ill, supposedly from an abscess on 
the liver. However, he proceeded to Peking on 
December 31, and inspired the Kuomintang to boy- 
cott the Reorganization Conference, demanding in 
its stead a people’s conference. An exploratory op- 
eration on January 26 revealed that the disease 
from which he was suffering was malignant cancer, 
and he lingered on in the Rockefeller Hospital until 
a few days before his death, when he was removed 
to a private residence, in order, apparently, that 
the Kuomintang extremists might insure the issue 
of a political testament in accordance with their 
own views. He died on March 12, leaving, it 1s 
alleged, directions that he was to be embalmed 
like his friend Lenin, and a message of affection to 
the Moscow government. 

Since Dr. Sun’s death there has been a quiet but 
persistent struggle between Chang Tso-lin and 
Feng Yu-hsiang (the Christian general) for the 
mastery of North China. Though the latter has 
received arms and other assistance from the bol- 
sheviks, he has had, gradually, to yield to the 
pressure continuously applied by the Manchurian 
war-lord. His troops have evacuated the Chihli 
province, and are now removing from Peking to 
Kalgan, leaving Chang Tso-lin supreme in the 
metropolitan province, Shantung, Anhwei, and 


[ 44 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


Kiangsu, in addition to Manchuria. With his army 
at Peking and astride the northern sector of the 
Peking-Hankow Railway, Chang Tso-lin also iso- 
lates General Feng from his former allies in Honan. 
It seems inevitable that there will be a conflict, 
sooner or later, between Chang Tso-lin and the 
Christian general, though the latter has so far 
avoided hostilities by yielding to all of Chang’s 
demands. 

In the middle Yangtze province the actual 
power is still retained by Wu Pet-fu’s former sup- 
porters, who, though they profess allegiance to the 
chief executive, may at any time find themselves 
strong enough to defy Peking, unless Chang T’so- 
lin and Wu Pei-fu come to terms. In Western 
China (Szechwan), another of Wu Pei-fu’s allies is 
fighting, with hopeful prospects, for control. In 
South China a Yunnanese expedition is advancing 
on Canton, where fighting has already broken out 
between Dr. Sun’s Yunnanese forces and the 
Kwangtung troops. 

I have dealt only with the political history of 
China, and with that mainly in so far as the central 
government has been concerned. It would be im- 
possible here to list all of the provincial and inter- 
provincial civil wars that have occurred since the 
establishment of the republic. I may, however, 


[45] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


summarize what has occurred by saying that dur- 
ing the first phase of the republic (1912-16) Yuan 
Shih-kai was in control of a more or less united 
country, with the Kuomintang in opposition. Dur- 
ing the second phase (1916-20), the north was con- 
trolled by a pro-Japanese military faction led by 
Marshal Tuan Chi-jui, while the southern and 
southwestern provinces were intermittently in re- 
volt. The next phase (1920-22) saw North China 
under the domination of the Chihli and Fengtien 
(or Manchurian) militarists, and the south still 
defiant. From 1922-24, Manchuria, as well as cer- 
tain of the Southern provinces, was independent, 
while the Chihli party, under Wu Pei-fu’s leader- 
ship, was attempting to reunite the country by 
force. Finally, today we have Chang Tso-lin su- 
preme in Manchuria and the northern-coast prov- 
inces, and dominating the capital, with Japanese 
approval, if not actual support; Feng Yu-hsiang, 
in spite of bolshevik assistance, rapidly losing his 
hold; the middle Yangtze and Szechwan controlled 
by Wu Pei-fu’s associates; and a struggle proceed- 
ing in South China between the Kuomintang ex- 
tremists of bolshevik affiliations, on the one hand, 
and Tang Chi-yao, who claims the position of, but 
is not recognized as, the Kuomintang generalissimo, 
on the other. Only one province has escaped the 


{ 46 J 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


miseries and vicissitudes of civil war since Ig12, 
and that is Shansi, which has become known as the 
“model province,” under the administration of Yen 
Hsi-shan. He has managed to keep out of all the 
civil wars that have raged around him, to keep his 
province more or less free from opium and morphia, 
and to maintain order, develop education, con- 
struct roads, and give the people over whom he 
rules the blessings of peace. 

In conclusion, I must emphasize that no real 
question of principle has been involved in any of 
the numerous civil wars with which China has been 
afHicted since the overthrow of the monarchy. 
They have all been sordid struggles for power by 
militarists and politicians. On each occasion, of 
course, the rivals have issued high-sounding mani- 
festoes, none of them being more vociferous in his 
noble protestations than Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Yet the 
latter, during his last term in power in Canton 
maintained himself by fomenting class-warfare, 
and by the support of Hunanese and Yunnanese 
mercenaries and local troops who were permitted 
to finance themselves by gambling, brothel, and 
opium monopolies. China is not and never has 
been a republic. I doubt whether she will be one 
in the generally accepted sense of the word during 
this or the next generation. 


1 47 | 


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I] 
PRESENT STATE OF CHINA 


China is today attracting world-wide attention, 
in consequence of the disorders which have been 
taking place throughout the country during the 
past month. To understand these disorders—fore- 
seen and predicted by many of us who make a 
study of conditions in that country on the spot— 
it is necessary to have a clear idea of what has hap- 
pened since in February, 1912, China became, in 
name at any rate, a republic. In my first lecture 
I gave an outline of the history of the so-called 
Republic. You will also doubtless hear from other 
speakers in the course of these meetings of the 
progress that China has been making during the 
past thirteen or fourteen years. I shall, for the 
moment, introduce you to the darker side of the 
picture. In doing so I should like to disclaim any 
hostility toward China or the Chinese. What I 
shall tell you is told merely in the interests of 
truth, and in the belief that the truth must be 
known if the present troubles are to be clearly 
understood. 

In the first place China has never been—and 


[49 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


during the next thirty or forty years is unlikely to 
be—a republic, in the generally accepted sense of 
the word. That is to say, she is not a state in which 
the sovereign power rests in the whole body of the 
people and is exercised by representatives elected 
by them. Why this is so will be easier to under- 
stand when I tell you that the program of con- 
stitutional reform adopted by the Manchu dynasty 
in 1908 did not anticipate that more than 1 per 
cent of the population would be able to read and 
write by 1914-15, or more than 5 per cent by 1917. 
It is true that the number of schools and colleges, 
and of students attending them, has increased from 
about one-and-a-half millions in 1912 to over six- 
and-a-half millions in 1923. But it is estimated to- 
day that from 80 to go per cent of the Chinese are 
illiterate. Mr. James Yen, who has devoted his 
life to the mass-education movement, in a recent 
pamphlet, states: 

Eighty per cent of China’s 400,000,000 cannot read or 
write. Millions upon millions have not the least idea whether 
their country is a monarchy or a democracy. Can such people 
form intelligent public opinion, or exercise any real control 
over the affairs of the nation? Do we have to go far to find 
out why the corrupt practices of the officials and militarists 
go unchecked? Or why the suffering, poverty, and lawless- 
ness among the people steadily increase before our very 
eyes! 


[ so J 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


The late president, Tsao Kun, was elected to 
office by the expenditure of about fifteen million 
dollars, extorted from the people, upon bribing the 
parliamentarians. The present government 1s of a 
provisional character only, presided over by a 
notoriously pro-Japanese militarist, who has been 
put into office as provisional chief executive by the 
northern militarists. The latter do not even pre- 
tend to obey his orders now that he has accepted 
the empty title. 

Ever since the death of Yuan Shih-kai in 1916 
China has been in a ferment. There has hardly 
been a week when a civil war has not been in prog- 
ress in some part of the country. At no time has 
the nation possessed a government capable of en- 
forcing obedience outside of the walls of Peking. 
The actual power has remained in the hands of 
rival militarists, who have raised enormous armies 
which owe allegiance to them, and not to the gov- 
ernment, and are supported by wholesale extor- 
tions from the people. In 1912 China had 240,000 
soldiers in modern formations and about 280,000 
old-style troops, a total of more than 500,000. To- 
day she is afflicted with some twenty-five inde- 
pendent armies, totaling nearly one-and-a-half mil- 
lion men, not one of which is under the orders of 
the central government. The strongest militarist at 


{51 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the moment is Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian 
war-lord, who has upward of 270,000 troops spread 
over Manchuria, Chihli, Shantung, Anhwei and 
Kiangsu. In one province alone—Szechwan—there 
are 114,000 men under arms. Wars are constantly 
being fought to establish the mastery of this or that 
militarist over a certain province, or over the cen- 
tral government. The administration is completely 
overridden by the militarists, who impose what- 
ever taxes they fancy, and occupy and ruin the 
railways. In many cases it 1s difficult to distinguish 
between troops and brigands. The people often 
prefer the latter. 

Financially, China is bankrupt at the moment. 
In rg12 her total national debt was about fifteen 
hundred million dollars; today it is about twenty- 
four hundred million. That in itself would not be 
a very serious matter as it amounts only to a per 
capita debt of about three dollars gold per head. 
But whereas, in 1912, revenue and expenditure ap- 
proximately balanced at four hundred and fifty 
million dollars, today it is estimated that the annu- 
al deficit amounts to that sum. All revenues other 
than the customs revenues, which are administered 
by a foreign staff, are liable to seizure by the mili- 
tarists and provincial authorities. Nearly 50 per 
cent of the salt revenues, which are also under 


{ 52} 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


foreign supervision, were misappropriated last 
year, and only a minute percentage of other na- 
tional revenues, such as the wine and tobacco taxes 
and the stamp taxes, ever reaches the national 
treasury. Numerous foreign loans are now in de- 
fault. The administration leads a hand-to-mouth 
existence, raising loans on the estimated customs 
and salt surpluses years ahead. 

I shall deal with the administration of justice in 
a subsequent lecture. It will suffice here to men- 
tion that China is far and away the largest opium- 
producer in the world, her output being estimated 
at about eight times that of the whole of the rest 
of the world, although the law prohibits the culti- 
vation, transportation, smoking, or sale of opium. 
That will show the extent to which the laws of the 
country are enforced. 

Optimistic views are sometimes based upon 


-China’s trade returns. If one takes the figures for 


| 
| 








1903, 1913, and 1923, it certainly appears that the 
volume of trade doubled in the first decade, and 
was nearly doubled again in the second, the figures 
being: 


Taels 
TOO% aad ey nee 561,319,602 
LO Ei 'aes tients ate TOS 723, O51 
TOO} rete inene se I, 726,782, 369 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


It is a mistake, however, to assume that the 
volume of China’s foreign trade has shown a sub- 
stantial increase of late. The most recent customs 
returns show that if the values of China’s imports 
and exports in 1923 are recalculated at the 1913 
values, the increase in the volume of trade during 
the past decade amounts to less than I5 per cent. 
It is surprising that there should have been any 
increase at all, when one remembers the difficul- 
ties and risks under which trade has been con- 
ducted. 

It is generally admitted that China’s most press- 
ing need is the development of her communica- 
tions, especially railways. In 1912, 5,822 miles had 
been completed, and 2,205 were under construc- 
tion. In 1924, only 7,691 miles had been completed, 
and construction was at a standstill, except on the 
Lunghai line. Railways would, if properly man- 
aged, be a golden investment in China. Under fav- 
orable conditions they have been operated at a ra- 
tio of expenditure to revenue of a little over 30 per 
cent. But the railways are rapidly being reduced to 
ruin by the militarists, who seize locomotives and 
rolling stock indiscriminately, and appropriate 
practically all the railway revenues to their own 
use. The Tientsin-Pukow Railway, which connects 
North China with the Yangtze, some years ago 


1 54 ] 


PROBLEVI>VpOR PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


ordered and obtained, but has not yet paid for, a 
number of sumptuous cars for the daily Blue Ex- 
press. During the civil war of last autumn, these 
cars were seized and carried off to other lines by 
various military commanders who took a fancy to 
them, and some of them have since been seen in 
Honan, with chimneys projecting from the roofs, 
in use as portable military barracks. 

When I left Tientsin at the end of May, before 
the present trouble had begun, the railway was 
only able to run a train on alternate days, and it 
was frequently from twenty-four to forty hours 
late, on a twenty-four-hour journey, owing to mili- 
tary interference with the operation of the line. 
The only railways now in a satisfactory condition 
are those owned by foreigners—the South Man- 
churian Railway in Manchuria, under Japanese 
control, and the Yunnan Railway, which 1s under 
French control. It seems to be only a question of 
time before the entire railway system of China 
breaks down. 

The currency situation today is amazing. The 
attempt to issue standard subsidiary coinage, ex- 
changeable at face value, has failed, owing to the 
use of the mints in the provinces, by the militarists, 
for revenue purposes. Copper coins have depre- 
ciated from 123 to the dollar in December, 1912, 


{55 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


to 206.4 to the dollar in December, 1924, and these 
are still the coins of the masses. 

I will now turn to the present disturbances and 
the events immediately leading up to them. The 
present disturbances in China are to be attributed 
mainly to the universal discontent caused by near- 
ly ten years of-misrule and civil war. China has 
never been united, administratively or politically, 
since the death of Yuan Shih-kai. She has been 
preyed upon by rival militarists and self-seeking 
politicians, who have cared nothing for the welfare 
of the people, and regarded commerce as permis- 
sible only in so far as it yields them the revenues re- 
quired to maintain their ill-disciplined armies. It 1s 
not surprising that a people whose territory has 
been ravaged by civil wars, the sufferings from 
which have been aggravated by flood and drought, 
and by the oppression of the militarists in power, 
should be seething with discontent, and ready, 
without analysis or discrimination, to accept any 
propaganda, however pernicious, that pretends to 
reveal the cause of these evils. The Chinese are an 
easily excitable but generally docile people. They 
will tolerate from their own officials oppression and 
misrule which would make any Westerner see red. 
But it is easy today, as it has been in the past, to 
divert attention from the shortcomings of their 


[ 56 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


own oppressors to fancied grievances against for- 
eign nations. They appear to have no political dis- 
crimination where foreigners are concerned. The 
Boxer outbreak was a manifestation of discontent 
against the Manchu régime which was diverted 
into an anti-foreign movement. And the present 
trouble is similar in that respect, though fresh ele- 
ments have been introduced since 1900. 

I was at home in England when the students 
first became really active in Peking during the 
Versailles conference, attacked the residences of the 
pro-Japanese ministers, and so humiliated them 
that they had to resign. At first I was tempted to 
regard it as a good sign that public opinion in 
China had found some champions to challenge the 
subservience of the Peking government to Japan. 
But I had reason to change this view when I re- 
turned to Tientsin and found what the students, 
flushed with their initial success, were actually do- 
ing. They had decreed an anti-Japanese boycott in 
Tientsin and other cities which they were enforcing 
_ by methods which would not be tolerated by any 
self-respecting government. They forced their way 
into Chinese shops and offices to search for goods 
of Japanese manufacture, which they confiscated 
or burnt if discovered, in addition to fining the 
merchants, and in some cases parading them under 


157] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


humiliating conditions through the streets and 
even arresting and detaining them at their head- 
quarters. The Chinese officials seldom interfered 
unless attacks were made upon their residences or 
yamens. Then police or soldiers would be employed 
to disperse the rioters, and I have had a young 
Chinese in my office quivering with indignation at 
what he called “‘a massacre,” when the Chihli gov- 
ernor’s bodyguard had forcibly repelled an attempt 
to break into the civil governor’s yamen. 

Since 1919 the students have become more and 
more insubordinate and lawless. They have formed 
their own unions, which include in their member- 
ship boys and girls in their early teens; they have 
persistently engaged in demonstrations, some of a 
political, others of an anti-foreign character. They 
have terrorized their teachers, who are generally 
driven out of office if they attempt to maintain 
discipline or even the recognized standard of ex- 
aminations, and have browbeaten whole communi- 
ties into submission to their orders, however ab- 
surd. Only a few months ago a handful of students 
in Foochow,-a city of nearly seven hundred and 
fifty thousand, decreed that no imported fish might 
be consumed, for fear it might come from Japan, 
and applied this restriction to American and 
Canadian herrings, for which there was a large 


{ 58 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


local demand, actually visiting and in some cases 
seriously assaulting dealers who handled these 
herrings. Five dealers were stabbed. When the 
local American Consul protested the movement be- 
came anti-foreign. Students attending mission 
schools were threatened with assault, and their 
parents were bombarded with threatening letters. 
As usual, the local authorities did nothing for sev- 
eral weeks, though the identity of the ringleaders 
of this agitation was well known, and they were a 
mere handful, a dozen or so immature youths. 

It is to be regretted that some missionary 
schools and colleges, instead of putting their foot 
down on student lawlessness and insubordination, 
have actually encouraged these activities, and per- 
mitted their students to join the unions, hold meet- 
ings on the premises, and forsake their studies in 
order to participate in parades and riots whenever 
they fancied. It is true that the Roman Catholic 
institutions, and a number of British and American 
colleges, refused to allow their students to join the 
unions, and dealt severely with all outbreaks of in- 
subordination, but their efforts were offset to a con- 
siderable extent by the laxity in other missionary 
institutions. The government universities, col- 
leges, and schools have become hotbeds of sedition 
and bolshevism, and I shall later give you details of 


[59 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the kind of thing that is tolerated even in the 
capital of China. 


The students have been encouraged in lawless- 


ness by the soviet envoys in Peking, and by their 
subordinates. A. A. Joffe, the first bolshevik envoy 
to reach Peking—whither he came from Berlin, 
after being expelled for participation 1n the Sparta- 
cist outbreak—immediately got in touch with the 
faculty of the Peking Government University, 
whose Chancellor gave a reception in his honor in 
August, 1922, in the course of which he stated: 
“Russia furnished a good example to China, which 
thinks it advisable to learn the lessons of the 
Russian Revolution, which started also as a po- 
litical movement, but later assumed the nature of 
a social revolution.” Encouraged by his reception, 
Joffe made a number of speeches at various func- 
tions given by him, or arranged in his honor, at 
which he denounced the other powers as aggres- 
sive, imperialistic, and capitalistic. It 1s much 
easier to attribute the sufferings of the Chinese 
people during the past ten years to these causes 
than to admit the truth, which is that most of their 
misery has been due to the action of a noisy minor- 
ity in foisting upon China a system of government 
for which she was not ready, which the vast major- 
ity of her people do not yet understand, and which, 


[ 60 ] 


a 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


as long as the hearts of the people remain un- 
changed, could only have the effect of leaving them 
at the mercy of men more unscrupulous, more cor- 
rupt, and more intolerant of criticism or opposition 
than the worst officials of the Manchu régime. Dr. 
Sun Yat-sen was one of the noisiest and most mis- 
chievous of this minority. 

When Joffe reached China, Sun Yat-sen was 
suffering one of his periodical eclipses, and was re- 
siding in the French concession at Shanghai, under 
foreign-police protection. He had escaped from 
Canton in a British gunboat the same month that 
Joffe reached Peking, and was visited by the latter 
in January, 1923, this probably being the first oc- 
casion on which he got into direct touch with the 
bolsheviks. They subsequently issued a joint state- 
ment, in which they professed to share the view 
that ‘the Communistic order, or even the Soviet 
system, cannot actually be introduced into China, 
because there do not exist here the conditions for 
the successful establishment of either Communism 
or Sovietism.”’ 

Joffe failed in his mission, and was supplanted 
by a bigger man in the soviet hierarchy, Karahan, 
who reached Peking in September, 1923. Sun Yat- 
sen had returned to Canton, to head another revolu- 
tionary administration, earlier in the year. At the 


[ 61 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


first public function in his honor Karahan made a 
deliberate attack upon the United States, whose 
conduct his host Dr. C. T. Wang, who had been 
appointed to negotiate with him, had extolled, de- 
nouncing America’s signature of the Lincheng note, 
which claimed an indemnity for and precautions 
against a repetition of a serious bandit outrage. 
Since than Karahan has hardly allowed a week to 
pass without some attack upon America, Britain, 
France, or Japan, individually or jointly; while the 
official Russian news agency, which deluges the 
Chinese press with bolshevik propaganda, has co- 
operated in sowing poison in Chinese minds, in 
spite of the recognition of the soviet government 
by Great Britain, and the former’s solemn under- 
taking to abstain from propaganda hostile to 
British interests in the Far East. When there was 
a hitch in negotiations, a few weeks before the 
actual signature Karahan appealed to the Chinese 
educationalists and students to support him, while 
his emissary in Canton, then in open revolt against 
Peking, invited Sun Yat-sen, and through him the 
Kuomintang, “‘to take notice of the seriousness of 
the situation,” and to judge for himself whether the 
cabinet was justified in rejecting the agreement as 
drafted. Karahan redoubled his efforts after the sig- 
nature of the Sino-Russian Treaty of May 31, 1924. 


[ 62 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


I cannot here do more than refer very briefly to 
Karahan’s attempts to incite the Chinese to re- 
pudiate their treaties, and to rise against the 
foreigners. Within a few days of the signature of 
the May agreement, at a demonstration organized 
to celebrate its conclusion, Karahan was inviting 
his audience, composed mainly of students and 
political agitators, “to take by force from all the 
imperialistic powers” what the soviet government 
“save you of its own free will,” assuring them that 
the soviet government would “fight for a further 
development of our relations, and the national 
liberation of the people of China, which must be- 
come as free as the Russian people.”’ A day or two 
later, at the national university, he was telling his 
audience: 

The greatest woe and misfortune of the Chinese people, 
that which makes it suffer and keeps your great nation in a 
position almost of a semi-colonial country—let me be frank 
with you—are the treaties which exist between China and the 


imperialistic foreign powers. These treaties have fettered your 
national liberty, happiness and welfare. 


And he proceeded to urge his audience to engage in 
“the bloody struggle for national freedom and 
liberation from imperialism.” 

At a banquet given by Karahan on November 
7 and attended by the members of the provisional 


{ 63 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


government, a number of prominent militarists and 
officials, and numerous parliamentarians, pro- 
fessors, and journalists, he said: 

I was glad when I saw this morning the statement of 
the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs who spoke—quite 
naturally in careful terms—of the revision of Treaties with 
foreign powers as being in the order of the day. Now, as I 
am not the Foreign*Minister of the Republic of China, I 
may be permitted to say more definitely that those Treaties 
should not only be revised; they ought to be torn asunder, 
abolished, because they strangle China and because China 
cannot live under them. 

But ridiculous though it may appear to intelli- 
gent people, the most glaring example of soviet sup- 
port of the spirit of Boxerism is to be found in an 
incident which occurred in Peking in April of last 
year. On April 7 a Chinese soldier, belonging to the 
bodyguard of the Minister of War, was found 
wandering about on the southern section of the city 
wall, which is within the legation quarter, and from 
which Chinese are excluded. He was taken to the 
police station in the quarter where this was ex- 
plained to him, and would immediately have been 
released had he not boasted that he intended to re- 
turn to the wall forthwith. Accordingly he was sent 
to the nearest Chinese police station, which notified 
the legation authorities next day that he had been 
given four hundred blows, and confined to bar- 


[ 64 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


racks. Three days later he was at large again, and 
committed three successive assaults upon for- 
eigners—an American, an Italian, and a Briton. 
The first two were assaulted on a Chinese thorough- 
fare in full view of the Chinese police, who made no 
attempt to interfere. The British subject was sav- 
agely attacked on the wall, retaliated with his fists, 
and after a fierce struggle with the police, who had 
to obtain assistance, the man was again lodged 
in the legation-quarter police station. He was 
probably deranged, and had assurances been given 
that precautions would be taken to prevent a repe- 
tition of these assaults, nothing more would have 
been heard of the matter. But the soviet leaders 
chose to exploit this wretched soldier as a champion 
of anti-imperialism. Mass meetings were held in 
Peking at which the trial of the Briton who had 
been assaulted was demanded, and Trotzky de- 
voted his May Day speech in Moscow to cham- 
pioning the cause of this soldier. He addressed a 
message to the soldier telling him “in the name of 
us all” that “the proletariat of Moscow is with you 
earisapd. souls one st The brotherhood of nations 
is no vain principle with us.” And he returned to 
the charge in another oration, a month or two 
later. The incident is so ridiculous that it would be 
unworthy of mention except as showing the un- 


1 65 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


scrupulous exploitation by the bolsheviks even of 
unprovoked assaults upon innocent foreigners. 
How far is the present trouble in China due to 
bolshevik instigation? We have certain facts which 
throw considerable light upon this question. In the _ 
first place, soon after his return to Canton in 1923 
Sun Yat-sen seems to have gone over body and 
soul to the bolsheviks, though, as I have men- 
tioned, the joint statement which he issued with 
Joffe in January of that year expressed the view 
that bolshevism was unsuited to China. He became 
beside himself with rage with the treaty powers 
because, at the end of 1923, they refused to allow 
him, while retaining a precarious hold upon Can- 
ton, to seize the customs house, disintegrate the 
customs service, and use at his own sweet will 
revenues which form the security of foreign loans 
and indemnity payments. He maintained himself 
in power by mercenary troops imported from Hu- 
nan and Yunnan and supported by gambling, 
opium, and brothel monopolies which he granted to 
them to exploit. He incited the proletariat against 
the merchant and capitalist classes, and after tax- 
ing the latter beyond endurance, ordered their 
bloody repression for attempting to organize in 
self-defense, some hundreds being killed and num- 


bers of buildings looted or burnt. The only for- 
[ 66 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


eigners with whom he maintained cordial relations 
were bolsheviks. A special soviet envoy was con- 
stantly at his side, and participated in the meetings 
of the Kuomintang Committee. A cadet academy, 
staffed by bolshevik instructors, was established 
near Canton. A local Red Army was organized and 
used to overawe the merchants; and the arrival of 
a soviet sloop and the anniversary of the soviet 
revolution were the occasions for elaborate official 
celebrations. Before leaving Canton for the north 
he announced his intention of securing the abolli- 
tion of unequal treaties, and extraterritoriality. A 
Shanghai paper, which suggested that his presence 
in the foreign settlement would be unwelcome, 
roused him to fury. All foreign settlements and 
concessions must forthwith be abolished, although 
he had been glad enough to seek shelter in them in 
previous years. In Japan, which he visited en 
route, he concentrated his hatred upon the British, 
to whom he had twice owed his life. In Peking, his 
only conspicuous callers were Karahan and Boro- 
din. He cut himself off completely from the mod- 
erate elements of the Kuomintang during his last 
weeks. What purported to be his last message was 
addressed to his ‘‘dear comrades”’ in Moscow, with 
whom he instructed the Kuomintang to “keep 
in constant touch,” and he is said to have ex- 


{ 67 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


pressed a wish to be embalmed like his friend, 
Lenin. 

Was the Kuomintang subsidized by the soviet? 
Of this there is no direct proof, but very strong 
suspicion. Ma Soo, formerly Sun Yat-sen’s agent 
in the United States, in an address at Shanghai 
on December 12, shortly after his return from the 
States and following the submission of his resigna- 
tion, stated: 


Since returning to China I have become aware of the 
communistic propaganda which the soviet has been and is 
spreading in this country, and as a result I felt it incumbent 
upon me to warn the students of the dangers which lurk in 
the new and strange “isms” of Moscow. The worst phase of 
soviet propaganda in China is the use of Russian gold for the 
accomplishment of its purposes. I have positive proof of the 
use of soviet money in the Chinese schools among the students 
and teachers, and, probably worse to relate, I also have proof 
of its being used to influence the Chinese Press. 


Mr. Feng Shih-yu, another old member of the 
Kuomintang, in an interview on January 3 stated: 
If the Moscow bolsheviks stop their subsidy today, all the 


so-called Chinese communists will discard their communist 
label tomorrow. .... The so-called Chinese communists are 
in a decided minority, although well-organized as compared 
with other parties. They are principally drawn from the ranks 
of students, university professors, and disgruntled politicians, 
and their principal object is to obtain money from the 
Russians. I have no knowledge of the exact amount which 


[ 68 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


the bolsheviks spend annually on propaganda in this country, 
but it must be a tremendously large one, as in Canton alone 
they have already spent $2,000,000. 


Police raids upon Shanghai University early 
this year revealed the fact that it was a hotbed of 
bolshevism, and considerable seditious literature 
was confiscated; more, however, was found during 
a raid which took place at the beginning of June. 

The extent to which the students have got out 
of hand may be best realized if I give you a brief 
account of what occurred in Pekingin May. May 7 
is the anniversary of the Japanese ultimatum of 
1915, and the students make a habit of observing it 
as a national humiliation day, parading the streets 
and making anti-Japanese speeches. The Minister 
of Education on this occasion gave orders that gov- 
ernment schools and colleges were not to have a 
holiday on that date, but were to remain at work. 
Student demonstrations, however, were held in 
defiance of his orders, and the demonstrators made 
the Minister of Education the object of their ani- 
mosity. Failing to find him at the ministry of edu- 
cation, they proceeded to his private residence, 
which they broke into, smashing up or destroying 
everything it contained. There was a scuffle with 
the police, as a result of which several students 
were reported to have been injured, and one was 


[ 69 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


alleged to have died. During the following week 
the students continued to demonstrate, parading 
the streets and demanding the execution of the 
Minister of Justice and the Superintendent of 
Police. A mandate was issued in strong terms de- 
nouncing their interference in politics, but in spite 
of this negotiations were opened between the police 
and the educationalists, as a result of which it was 
announced that a compromise had been effected 
under which the police authorities would apologize 
for inflicting injuries upon the students, and con- 
sider claims for compensation, while the students 
would express regret for the destruction of the 
Minister’s private property. Not unnaturally, the 
Minister immediately tendered his resignation. 
But this was not by any means the only example 
of insubordination. There was about the same time 
an agitation at the Russian Language School, 
which is managed by the Chinese Foreign Office, 
the students deciding to rid themselves of the 
gentleman who had been their principal for four 
years, because they did not consider him sufficient- 
ly influential to secure them lucrative positions. 
He was compelled to resign, and a new principal 
was appointed, who suspended studies for ten days 
in order to reorganize the school. When it reas- 
sembled the students found that with the approval 


1 70 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


of the ministry for foreign affairs he had issued a 
series of regulations which, among other things, 
prohibited students from participating in political 
demonstrations. The students thereupon decided 
that he, too, must go. He was driven off the school 
premises, and the students proceeded in a body 
to the Waichiaopu, to demand his immediate dis- 
missal. 

The Higher Normal School for Girls, also dis- 
tinguished itself. On May 7, the principal, an 
American-educated woman, Miss Yang, had un- 
wisely granted permission to the students to hold a 
meeting in the school auditorium to discuss the 
Twenty-one Demands, and to invite a number of 
radical speakers to address them. When she rose 
to open the meeting she was howled down. The 
students then met and decreed her expulsion, and 
have since locked her out of the building. In the 
Franco-Chinese school in the western hills, near 
Peking, there has also been trouble. The principal, 
a well-known Chinese scholar who was educated in 
France, incurred the animosity of the students by 
refusing to accede to their demand for the abolition 
of monthly examinations. Thereupon they de- 
nounced him as a poor administrator, and have 
since been agitating for his dismissal. 

I have told you these facts about student activi- 


{71 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ties because they throw considerable light upon 
what has recently occurred in Shanghai, where the 
trouble really started with the shooting of several 
riotous students by the police. But I must, before 
coming to that, briefly refer to what had preceded 
this incident. In February last there was a series of 
strikes in the Japanese cotton mills in Shanghai. 
The circumstances under which they occurred were 
extremely suspicious. In the first place, the mills 
first affected were those belonging to the Naigai 
Wata Kaisha. This company has ten mills in 
Shanghai, and three in Tsingtao. The general man- 
ager, Mr. Okada, has the reputation of being one 
of the most advanced of the large employers of 
labor in Shanghai. He served on the recent Child 
Labor Commission in that city, which reeommend- 
ed local legislation to prevent the exploitation of 
child labor under inhuman or insanitary conditions. 
But even before this Commission met he had taken 
the lead in welfare work, providing elementary 
schools for the children of his employees, as well as 
hospital and other facilities. His record makes it 
difficult to believe that the alleged grievances of 
the strikers—ill treatment by Japanese foreman— 
were well founded, or, if well founded, would not 
have been redressed immediately if brought to his 
notice. Attacks were made upon the Naigai Wata 


{ 72] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


mills, resulting in considerable damage to their 
plant and serious injury to a number of Japanese. 
Students of both sexes participated in these demon- 
strations, and were active in circulating inflamma- 
tory literature but the real leadership of the strike 
never appears to have been revealed. It spread to 
other Japanese mills in Shanghai, and then to 
Tsingtao, where, during May, the strikers actually 
occupied some of the mills and were only dislodged 
by Chinese gendarmes after a regular battle, in 
which two workers were killed and about a dozen 
wounded. 

The Shanghai strike appeared to have been set- 
tled without any concession on the part of the em- 
ployers, other than an undertaking to see that there 
was no ill treatment of the workers, at the end of 
February. But more trouble broke out in the 
middle of May, in the course of which a number of 
strikers made an attack upon a Japanese mill, 
broke through the cordon of Japanese employees 
that had been drawn up to protect the property, 
and, it is alleged, started breaking up the machin- 
ery. Firearms were used by the Japanese, resulting 
in the death of one of the assailants. Police and 
volunteers had to be called out, and the mob dis- 
persed only after the former had fired over their 
heads. The students then assumed control of the 


1 73 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


situation, organizing demonstrations against the 
Japanese, demanding punishment of the Japanese 
who had shot the worker, and arranging processions 
through the settlement. Shanghai is a foreign set- 
tlement, governed by an International Municipal 
Council, of which an American attorney is chair- 
man today. It has been the consistent policy of the 
Council during the past years of unrest to exclude 
Shanghai from the vortex of Chinese militarism 
and politics. Armed Chinese are not permitted 
within the settlement, nor are political demon- 
strations of any kind permitted. A few weeks be- 
fore the shooting incident at the Japanese mill, 
permission for a women’s political demonstration 
in the settlement had been refused. During the 
civil wars of this and last year, police, volunteers, 
and landing parties from foreign warships have 
kept armed Chinese troops, no matter to what fac- 
tion they belonged, outside the settlement. On 
December 16 last, a deputation from the Chinese 
Chambers of Commerce and the Chinese Rate- 
payers’ Association visited the municipal offices to 
present the volunteers with mementos of Chinese 
gratitude for the services rendered in maintaining 
order during the fighting round Shanghai in 
September and October. 

The students, however, have become accus- 


{ 74 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


tomed to defying their own authorities, and doubt- 
less thought they could to the same in Shanghai, 
and on Saturday, May 30, arranged for simul- 
taneous meetings in the streets to protest against 
the killing of a Chinese workman by the Japanese. 
That afternoon they occupied the main thorough- 
fare of the settlement, waving anti-foreign flags, 
and making anti-Japanese speeches. Some of the 
speakers were arrested, and the crowds were repeat- 
edly ordered to disperse but took no notice. Large 
crowds of demonstrators followed the arrested men 
to the police station. The demonstrators later at- 
tacked the police, and attempted to disarm them. 
The arrest of these assailants led to further dis- 
turbance and more assaults on the police, culminat- 
ing in an attack upon the police station, accom- 
panied by shouts of “‘Kill the foreigners!” and at- 
tempts to wrench away the arms of the police on 
duty. Eventually, the inspector in charge gave the 
order to fire, which was obeyed, resulting in the 
killing of four men outright and the wounding of 
a number of others. This affray became the pretext 
for a general strike in Shanghai and anti-foreign 
demonstrations throughout the country. The cen- 
tral government, instead of attempting to repress 
these disorders, took the side of the students, and, 
without awaiting detailed reports, demanded the 


{75 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


release of the arrested students and the punishment 
of the police. 

If one cannot adduce definite proof that the mill 
strikes in Shanghai and Tsingtao were instigated 
by soviet agents, one can fairly assume that they 
have since been exploited to foment anti-foreign 
feeling, by Karahan and his agents. The shooting 
of riotous students has been represented as another 
act of oppression by the imperialistic powers. It 1s 
not, perhaps, surprising that a nation seething with 
discontent should credit the statements incessantly 
dinned into its ears by soviet agents and their 
Chinese hirelings, that their woes are due to “1m- 
perialism.”” I do not think that communism has 
made much headway among the merchant and 
farming class in China, or even that the immature 
students who give it lip-service fully understand 
what it means. But other features of bolshevism 
such as class warfare, anarchy, and xenophobia 
have taken root, and it 1s difficult to say where the 
mischief will end. The secretary of the Shanghai 
Municipal Council has publicly stated that as the 
result of police raids it has been definitely estab- 
lished that the Russian bolshevik authorities in 
Shanghai have been supplying funds, and in other 
ways encouraging the activities of the Chinese 
students. Quantities of communistic and anti-for- 


[76] | 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


eign literature, as well as correspondence with for- 
eign communist organizations, were seized in a raid 
on Shanghai University. Karahan, the soviet en- 
voy, sent an official expression of sympathy to the 
Chinese government in connection with the Shang- 
hai incidents. 

A deplorable feature of the whole business is the 
contemptible attitude of a considerable section of 
the Japanese press. The whole trouble originated, 
as I have shown, in an anti-Japanese movement. 
The police acted only in the interests of order, and 
the fact that the inspector in charge and the 
European constables involved were British was 
accidental. The bulk of the foreign police in Shang- 
hai are and always have been British, since the 
establishment of the municipality. The Japanese 
papers I have referred to, however, are endeavoring 
to incite the Chinese against the British, and the 
British only, as responsible for the present trouble. 
It was against the British that Sun Yat-sen di- 
rected most of his venom. And there is no doubt 
that the soviet regard British influence as the most 
important factor in the maintenance of order in the 
Far East, and are therefore concentrating upon 
undermining it. The soviet press, which has been 
propagating in favor of American recognition, has 
commended America’s attitude toward the recent 


[77] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


disturbances, and denounced that of Great Britain. 
And the anti-foreign movement in China, for the 
time being seems to be directed mainly against 
Great Britain and Japan. 

I do not think that you will resent my being 
quite frank on this occasion, and drawing attention 
to the criminal recklessness displayed by certain 
missionary institutions in connection with the pres- 
ent disturbances. Yenching University, in Peking, 
within a day or two of the news of the first Shang- 
hai disturbances reaching the capital, and several 
days before the official police version of what had 
occurred could possibly have been received, issued 
a statement in the name of the university deploring 
the action of the police in killing unarmed students. 
As an English paper printed in Peking said at the 
time: “What the student body just at the present 
moment needs is not encouragement to prejudge 
issues or to adopt inflammatory methods, but wise 
restraint and guidance.” 

Even more deplorable, in my opinion, was what 
happened at Canton, after the attack upon Sha- 
meen by the Chinese, instigated by the Russian- 
trained cadets. This attack took place on June 23, 
by which time every well-informed foreigner in 
China must have been aware that the life of every 
white man and white woman in China who was not 


{ 78 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


under armed protection was in peril. Yet on the 
evening of the affray, and admittedly without any 
investigation and relying upon the statements of 
students who were not in a position to see what oc- 
curred, a so-called report was issued over the signa- 
tures of the vice-president of the Canton Christian 
College, and signed by the Chinese members of the 
faculty, stating that the trouble had been started 
by foreigners in Shameen firing upon a Chinese pro- 
cession. Dr. Baxter, the vice-president, three days 
later retracted this allegation, admitting that his 
signature had been appended without his having 
any knowledge of the correctness of the report, 
other than the statements of Chinese members of 
the staff who were not in a position to see how the 
trouble started. I am not, I think, exaggerating in 
describing such reckless and irresponsible state- 
ments as criminal, under present conditions. I may 
add that forty of the leading American business 
men at Hongkong have publicly denounced the 
action of the faculty and students of this college in 
publishing erroneous statements about the Sha- 
meen incident. But it is unlikely that Dr. Baxter’s 
belated retraction will ever be reproduced by the 
Chinese press. 

I may say in conclusion that the situation that 
has arisen in connection with the Shanghai riots is 


{ 79 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


one which demands close co-operation on the part 
of all the treaty powers, and especially of America 
and Great Britain. It is the traditional Chinese 
policy to work for dissensions among the powers, 
and this is also the aim of the soviets. If British 
influence in China can be undermined, it means 
goodbye to all rights now enjoyed by the foreign 
communities in that country. And the interests of 
all powers which simply seek to develop their com- 
merce in China by legitimate methods are identical. 
If one suffers all will suffer. This 1s not an issue be- 
tween Britain and China, or Japan and China, but 
between Western civilization and anarchy. And it 
must depend on the outcome of this crisis whether 
foreigners can continue to pursue their legitimate 
avocations in China, in the enjoyment of reason- 
able security for their persons, their property, and 
their trade. 


[ 80 } 


II 


EXTRATERRITORIALITY 


I shall not deter you very long today with the 
history of extraterritoriality, but shall pass on as 
rapidly as possible to the practical aspects of a 
problem which is now exercising the minds of so 
many Chinese and foreigners who reside in Chinese 
territory. Extraterritoriality has been defined as 
“an exemption from the operation of local law, 
granted either by usage or by treaty, on account 
of the differences in law, custom, and social habits 
of civilized nations from those of uncivilized na- 
tions.’ In Europe and the Near East it has been 
known for many centuries, but has arisen from 
usage rather than treaty rights. In China it is 
based entirely upon treaties. You will, find in 
Morse’s International Relations of the Chinese Em- 
pire and in Wellington Koo’s The Status of Aliens 
in China accounts of its origin from the foreign and 
the Chinese points of view, respectively. You will 
be convinced by the former that it was an essential 
condition of foreign residence and trade in China. 
You will be asked to believe by the latter that it 


* Moore, International Law, XI, 593. 


[ 81 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


originated in the contumacy and lawlessness of 
British and other foreign adventurers, who “early 
began to withdraw themselves, by open defiance, 
from the operation of local laws.” The reasons 
given by foreign authorities for its introduction in 
China are numerous, but I will confine myself to a 
few. 

First, I would place the attitude of the Chinese 
official toward foreigners during the early days of 
foreign intercourse. To the Chinese the foreigner 
was a barbarian, to be treated “‘like beasts, and not 
ruled on the same principles as citizens..... 
Therefore to rule barbarians by misrule is the true 
and best way of ruling them.”? Foreigners, there- 
fore, were restricted to trading at a single port, 
Canton, and with an officially recognized monop- 
oly, known as the “co-Hong.” In Canton they 
were permitted to reside only in the factory dis- 
trict, a confined space on the river front. They 
were not permitted to engage Chinese servants 
(though this rule was generally relaxed), to bring 
women or arms into the factories, to use sedan 
chairs, or to enter into any direct relations with the 
local Chinese officials. They were not allowed to 
row for pleasure on the river, or to enter the city, 
and only on three days per month were they per- 


1 Morse, International Relations of the Chinese Empire, I, 111-12. 


{ 82 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


mitted, under the escort of an interpreter, to take 
the air at the flower gardens on the other side of 
the river. They had to return to Macao after each 
trading season.t They were held collectively re- 
sponsible for the misdeeds of individuals. And the 
local Chinese authorities would not recognize, or 
have any dealings with, foreign officials intrusted 
with the protection of their interests. 

Secondly, I would place the difference between 
Chinese and foreign law, especially in relation to 
homicide. Except that decapitation was the pun- 
ishment for murder and strangulation for man- 
slaughter, there was no distinction between the two 
offenses. A typical instance is that of the gunner of 
the country ship “Lady Hughes,” who was ac- 
cused of causing the death of a Chinese by firing a 
saluting gun, in November, 1784.” His surrender to 
the local authorities was immediately demanded, 
and when it was refused the supercargo of the ship 
was arrested and carried off into the city as a 
hostage. Eventually the gunner was surrendered, 
and on January 8, 1875, was strangled under orders 
from Peking, which must have been sent before 
there had been a semblance of a trial. When 
Chinese writers refer to British contumacy and 
lawlessness, it seems pertinent to point out that in 

t Motse, ap. cit., 1, 69-71. Fl bids Da lo2. 


{ 83 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the century preceding 1833 not more than a half- 
dozen cases have been recorded in which homicide 
was alleged against British subjects,* including 
several which were obviously accidental. 

Third, there was the Chinese doctrine of collec- 
tive responsibility. Again and again all commerce 
was stopped, and foreigners were subjected to all 
kinds of restraints and indignities, because of the 
alleged misconduct of one or more of their number. 
As the East India Company’s Select Committee re- 
corded in one case, in which an attempt was made 
to hold it responsible for a fracas between British 
Bluejackets and Chinese villagers: 

Thus we see our situation clearly made responsible for 
the acts of between two and three thousand individuals who 
are daily coming in contact with the lowest of the Chinese, 
and are exposed to assaults so wanton, and often so barbarous, 
as well as to robberies so extensive, that self-defence imposes 
upon them the necessity of attacking their assailants in a 
manner from whence death must ensue. A great and impor- 
tant commerce is instantly suspended, whole fleets at times 
detained, ourselves liable to seizure, and to be the medium of 
surrendering a man to death whose crime is only self-defence 
or obedience to orders, or else to lend ourselves to the most 
detestable falsehoods, in order to support a fabricated state- 
ment which may save the credit of the officers of the Chinese 
Government.? 

C. L. Hsia, Studies in Chinese Diplomatic History, p. 6. 


2 Morse, op. cit., p. 106 n. 


1 84 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


As early as 1833 the British Parliament passed 
an Act to Regulate the Trade to China and India, 
which included provision for the establishment of a 
court of justice with criminal and admiralty juris- 
diction, but it was not until the conclusion of the 
so-called Opium War that Britain’s extraterritorial 
rights were recognized by China. I say so-called 
Opium War because, as a matter of fact, from the 
British point of view it was no more an opium war 
than the American Revolution was a tea war.? To 
the Chinese it appeared that the seizure of opium 
was the casus belli. To the British, however, it was 
essentially a war over questions of the status of 
British subjects and officers. Lord Palmerston’s 
dispatches make it clear that the British govern- 
ment would not have complained, if the 
Government of China, after giving due notice of its altered 
intentions [regarding opium] had proceeded to exclude the 
law of the Empire, and had seized and confiscated all the 
opium they could find within Chinese territory..... But it 
determined to seize peaceable British merchants, instead of 
seizing the contraband opium; to punish the innocent for the 
guilty, and to make the sufferings of the former the means of 
compulsion upon the latter; and it also resolved to force the 
British Superintendent, who 1s an officer of the British Crown, 

7 Koo, Status of Aliens in China, pp. 95, 599. 


2 John Quincy Adams, quoted by Morse, op. cit., I, pp. 254 n., 
177. 


[85 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


to become an instrument in the hands of the Chinese Authori- 
ties, for carrying into execution the Laws of China, with which 
he had nothing to do.? 


I might add, in passing, that in those days Ameri- 
can vessels enjoyed the monopoly of transporting 
Turkish opium to China,? that among the seizures 
at Canton in 1839 were fifteen hundred chests from 
Russell and Company,3 an American firm; that 
although the British government considered legal- 
ization of the opium trade the only practical meas- 
ure, it did not force this upon the Chinese govern- 
ment after the victorious war of 1840-42; and that 
when the opium trade was eventually legalized in 
1858,4 1t was with the support if not at the in- 
stance of the American plenipotentiary. 

The Treaty of Nanking of 1842 did not itself 
concede extraterritorial rights, but the general 
regulations attached to that treaty provided: 

Regarding the punishment of English criminals, the 
English Government will enact the laws necessary to attain 
that end, and the Consul will be empowered to put them into 
force; and regarding the punishment of Chinese criminals, 
these will be tried and punished by their own laws, in the way 
provided for by the correspondence which took place at Nan- 
king after the concluding of peace. 

* Morse, op. cit., I, 623. 3 [bid., p. 218. 

a [bid p.1207. 4 [bid., p. 554. 

5 Koo, op. cit., p. 134. 


[ 86 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


The treaty did, however, provide for the ces- 
sion of Hongkong, and the opening of five ports 
—Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai 
—to British trade. It is noteworthy that Sir Henry 
Pottinger, the British envoy who negotiated that 
treaty, was instructed constantly to bear in mind 
that ‘we seek for no exclusive advantages, and 
demand nothing that we shall not willingly see en- 
joyed by the subjects of all other states.” 

The American envoy, Caleb Cushing, who 
reached China in March, 1844, with instructions to 
negotiate a treaty that was just, with no unfair ad- 
vantage on either side, learning what the British 
had done, and having actual proof of what sub- 
mission to Chinese jurisdiction might involve as the 
result of some American citizens firing on a mob in 
self-defense,’ secured a definite grant of criminal 
jurisdiction over American citizens in Article XXI 
of the Treaty of Wanghia. The extraterritorial 
rights of the treaty powers were more clearly de- 
fined in subsequent treaties, from only one of 
which, the Chefoo agreement of September, 1876, 
between Britain and China, need I quote here: 

Secrion II.~(ii) The British Treaty of 1858, Article 
XVI, lays down that “Chinese subjects who may be guilty of 


any criminal act towards British subjects shall be arrested 
t Morse, op. cit., p. 663. GTR deg hs 


[ 87 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


and punished by the Chinese authorities, according to the 
laws of China. 

“British subjects who may commit any crime in China 
shall be tried and punished by the Consul, or any other 
public functionary authorised thereto, according to the laws 
of Great Britain. 

“Justice shall be equitably and impartially administered 
on both sides.” 

The words ‘‘functionary authorised thereto” are trans- 
lated in the Chinese text “British Government.” 

In order to secure the fulfilment of its treaty obligations, 
the British Government has established a Supreme Court at 
Shanghai, with a special code of rules, which it is now about 
to revise. The Chinese Government has established at 
Shanghai, a Mixed Court; but the officer presiding over it, 
either from lack of power or dread of unpopularity, constantly 
fails to enforce his judgments. 

It is now understood that the Tsungli yamen will write 
a circular to the Legations, inviting Foreign Representatives 
at once to consider with the Tsungli yamen, the measures 
needed for the more effective administration of justice at the 
ports open to foreign trade. 

(iii) It is agreed that, whenever a crime is committed 
affecting the person or property of a British subject, whether 
in the interior or at the open ports, the British Minister shall 
be free to send officers to the spot to be present at the investi- 
gation. 

To the prevention of misunderstanding, on this point, Sir 
Thomas Wade will write a note to the above effect, to which 
the Tsungli yamen will reply, affirming that this is the course 
of proceeding to be adhered to for the time to come. 


[ 88 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


It is further understood that so long as the laws of the 
two countries differ from each other, there can be but one 
principle to guide judicial proceedings in mixed cases in China, 
namely, that the case is to be tried by the official of the de- 
fendant’s nationality, the official of the plaintiff’s nationality 
merely attending to watch the proceedings in the interests of 
justice. If the officer so attending be dissatisfied with the 
proceedings, it will be in his power to protest against them in 
detail. The law administered will be the law of the nationality 
of the officer trying the case. This is the meaning of the words 
hui ung, indicating combined action in judicial proceedings 
in Article XVI of the Treaty of Tientsin; and this is the 
course to be respectively followed by the officers of either 
nationality. 

As a consequence of extraterritoriality, there- 
fore, a Chinese or American or any other national 
who charges a British subject with any crime, or 
wishes to sue him for any civil cause, must institute 
proceedings before a British court. The latter, 
however, cannot, in a civil suit, entertain a counter- 
claim against a national of another state; nor has it 
any authority, other than that accorded by cour- 
tesy, over non-British witnesses. It 1s easy to un- 
derstand that complications may arise in which 
three or more parties of different nationalities may 
be involved, requiring decision by three or more 
different tribunals. Moreover, it not infrequently 
happens that persons of different nationalities are 
implicated in the same crime, in which case sepa- 


[ 89 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


rate trials must take place under their respective 
laws in the courts exercising jurisdiction. 

I shall now briefly describe the situation today. 
The so-called “treaty powers,” either under defi- 
nite treaty stipulations or by virtue of “‘most- 
favoured nation treatment,” still enjoy extraterri- 
torial privileges to the exclusion of Chinese juris- 
diction. These. governments are Belgium, Brazil, 
Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, 
Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, 
Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. 
Austria-Hungary and Germany" lost their extra- 
territorial rights as a result of the abrogation of 
their treaties with China, following the latter’s 
participation in the Great War. Russians were de- 
prived of extraterritorial rights by a presidential 
mandate suspending recognition of the tsarist 
minister and consuls, promulgated on September 
2 2GeLO eye 

British jurisdiction is exercised, in minor crimi- 
nal and civil cases in the outports, by consular 
officers, and in Shanghai by an assistant judge and 
police magistrate. Serious criminal charges, and 
civil cases in which serious issues are involved, are 


1 China Year Book (1921-22), p. 739, and ibid. (1925), pp. 783, 
785. 
2 [Did (199-22). 020, 


[ 90 | 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


heard by the Supreme Court sitting in Shanghai or 
elsewhere with appeal to the full court and eventu- 
ally to the Privy Council. American jurisdiction is 
exercised locally by American consular officers, and 
in important cases, civil and criminal, by the 
United States Court for China, which was estab- 
lished by an act of Congress on June 30, 1906. The 
French and Japanese have judicial officials in 
China. In the case of other treaty powers, jurisdic- 
tion is exercised by their consular officials, usually 
with right of appeal to some home tribunal. 

A curious feature is the Shanghai mixed court." 
The international settlement at Shanghai was an 
area set apart for foreign residence and trade, and 
consists to-day of the former British and American 
settlements and an extension thereto, administered 
by the International Foreign Municipal Council. 
There was an influx of Chinese refugees during the 
Taiping rebellion, and the Chinese population has 
since increased until it numbers nearly one million. 
There were obvious difficulties in the way of permit- 
ting a purely Chinese court to function in a foreign- 
administered settlement, and at first Jurisdiction 
was exercised by the British consul-general. In 
1864 a so-called “‘mixed court” was established, 


* For fuller information on the mixed court, see Kotener, Shang- 
hat, Its Mixed Court and Council, 1925. 


[ 91 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


presided over by a deputy of the Shanghai magis- 
trate, with a foreign assessor on the bench in cases 
in which foreign or municipal interests were in- 
volved. The history of the development of the 
mixed court would take too long in the telling, and 
I can only say here that its authority gradually in- 
creased, in spite of Chinese opposition and obstruc- 
tion, until tg11, when the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion compelled the treaty-power consuls to take 
over control of the tribunal. It 1s today staffed by 
magistrates whose appointment is subject to the 
approval of the foreign consuls, and who sit in 
rotation with foreign assessors, the records being 
kept by the municipal police. Prisoners sentenced 
to imprisonment serve their term in jails controlled 
by the Municipal Council. Criminals sentenced to 
capital punishment are sent to the Chinese city 
authorities to be executed. The mixed court prob- 
ably handles a greater volume of business, civil and 
criminal, than any other tribunal in the world. Its 
jurisdiction now extends to Germans, Russians, 
and other non-treaty-power nationals in Shanghai. 
The Chinese now claim that the mixed court should 
become a purely Chinese institution, instead of, as 
today, remaining under consular and municipal 
control. 

Before dealing in some detail with the objec- 


1 92 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


tions to the abolition of extraterritoriality, I pro- 
pose to refer briefly to some of the arguments 
against its perpetuation. In the first place, it 1s 
argued, and quite correctly, that it constitutes an 
infringement of China’s sovereign rights and inde- 
pendence. Second, it leads to a multiplicity of 
jurisdictions, as I have already mentioned; the ap- 
plication of different laws, even where the same 
issues are involved; and uncertainty as to the issue 
of any particular case. But the main objection to 
its perpetuation, and the one most difficult to 
answer, is its abuse—chiefly by governments which 
have infinitesimal or at least insignificant inter- 
ests in China. The worst offenders have been the 
Spanish, Cuban, Brazilian, and other South Ameri- 
can consulates. The Spanish consulate of recent 
years appears to have made a specialty of extend- 
ing its protection, on the flimsiest of pretexts, to 
Chinese who desire to evade the jurisdiction of 
their own authorities. Its latest performance has 
been to claim jurisdiction over a Jew born of Turk- 
ish parents in India, who repudiated his British na- 
tionality some years ago, sought French protection 
as a Turk, and now claims that he has become en- 
titled to Spanish protection as the result of an 
ordinance restoring Spanish nationality to Sephar- 
dic Jews who like to avail themselves of it. The 


[ 93 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Brazilian consulate seems to exist solely for the 
purpose of extending its protection over public 
gaming establishments, which are at present func- 
tioning under Brazilian protection in Shanghai and 
Tientsin. The Cuban consulate used to exist for the 
same end. The scandal of foreign protection of 
Chinese attained such proportions that at the An- 
nual Conference of British Chambers of Commerce 
in 1921 a resolution was adopted unanimously 
which read: 

That this Conference deprecates the growing tendency of 
certain foreign Consulates in China to afford protection to 
Chinese by process of naturalization or other means, as it is 
notorious that in the majority of cases the applicants for 
naturalization are not actuated by any desire to leave their 
own country to take up their residence in a foreign state, but 
take this simple means of evading their just obligations and 
liabilities and escaping from the jurisdiction to which they 
would otherwise be amenable. 

It is only fair to say that the Spanish Consul, 
who was the most notorious offender, was dismiss- 
ed, and the naturalization certificates issued by him 
were cancelled. But other consuls, notably those of 
Portugal, and more recently, of Chile, have also 
been offenders. 

Finally, there is the objection that as long as 
extraterritoriality prevails it is impossible for the 
Chinese government to throw open the whole 


1 94] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


country to foreign trade. The necessity of sending 
for trial every foreigner entitled to extraterritortal- 
ity who commits the most trivial offense to the 
nearest treaty port at which one of his consular 
officers functions is cited as an insuperable obstacle 
to permitting foreign residence trade outside the 
fifty treaty and open ports. To this day foreigners 
are not entitled by treaty to reside in Peking for 
business purposes, or to own or lease business 
premises elsewhere than in the open ports. 

I now turn to the problem of abolishing extra- 
territoriality, and to the objections of such aboli- 
tion. Grand Secretary Wensiang in 1869 said to the 
British minister, Sir R. Alcock: “Do away with 
your extraterritoriality clause, and merchant and 
missionary may settle anywhere and everywhere; 
but retain it, and we must do our best to confine 
you and our trouble to the treaty ports.” Extra- 
territoriality has always been resented by patriotic 
Chinese, but it was not until the signature of the 
Anglo-Chinese Commerical Treaty of 1902 that 
any definite stipulation was made regarding its 
abolition. Article XIII reads: 


China having expressed a strong desire to reform her 
judicial system and to bring it into accord with that of 
Western nations, Great Britain agrees to give every assistance 
to such reform, and she will also be prepared to relinquish her 


[95] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


extraterritorial rights when she is satisfied that the state of 
the Chinese laws, the arrangements for their administration, 
and other considerations, warrant her in so doing. 

Great Britain had relinquished extraterritorial 
rights in Japan three years previously; similar pro- 
visions appeared in the American and Japanese 
commercial treaties of 1903, while Sweden, in the 
Commercial Treaty of 1908, agreed to relinquish 
consular jurisdiction “‘as soon as all other powers 
have agreed to relinquish their extraterritorial 
rights.” The last treaty signed by China in which 
extraterritorial rights were conceded was that with 
Switzerland, signed in Tokio, in June, 1918. In 
treaties since signed with Bolivia, Persia, Germany, 
and soviet Russia, China has retained jurisdiction 
over their nationals. 

China’s first formal claim for the abolition of 
extraterritoriality was presented in ig1g at the 
Peace Conference at Versailles. It was included in 
the “Questions for Readjustment Submitted by 
China to the Peace Conference,’* which, among 
other things, demanded the renunciation of spheres 
of influence or of interest, the withdrawal of foreign 
troops from China and of foreign wireless stations 
and post-offices, the relinquishments of leased terri- 
tories, the restoration of foreign settlements and 


™ For full text, see China Year Book (1921-22), pp. 719 ff. 


[ 96 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


concessions, and tariff autonomy. Some of the ob- 
jections I have already mentioned were set forth, 
and it was urged that China now had a national 
constitution, prescribing, among other things, the 
separation of government powers, and assuring to 
the people their inviolable fundamental rights of 
life and property, and guaranteeing the complete 
independence and ample protection of judicial 
officers and their entire freedom from interference 
on the part of the executive or legislative powers; 
that China had prepared a number of codes, some 
of which were provisionally enforced, and which 
had been carefully adapted from those of the most 
advanced nations; that new courts and procurator- 
ates of various kinds had been established, and 
that in view of the “satisfactory result China has 
already obtained, and the progress she has been 
making from day to day in the domain of legislative 
and judicial reforms, consular jurisdiction should 
be abolished by the end of 1924.” This question 
was not taken up at Versailles but was again raised 
at the Washington Conference, and supported by 
much the same arguments, in 1921. In this in- 
stance the Chinese delegation had not the audacity 
to name a date for its abolition, but asked the 
powers to agree to relinquish their extraterritorial 
rights in China at the end of a definite period. 


[97 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


The Washington Conference adopted a resolu- 
tion’ which, after reciting the provisions of the 
commercial treaties of 1902 and 1903 and express- 
ing sympathy with China’s aspirations, provided 
for the establishment of an International Com- 
mission, to which each of the signatories should ap- 
point one member 
to inquire into the present practice of extraterritorial juris- 
diction in China, and into the laws and the judicial system and 
the methods of judicial administration of China, with a view 
to reporting to the governments of the several powers above 
named their findings in fact in regard to these matters, and 
their recommendations as to such means as they may find 
suitable to improve the existing conditions of the administra- 
tion of justice in China, and to assist and further the efforts of 
the Chinese government to effect such legislation and judicial 
reforms as would warrant the several powers in relinquishing 
either progressively or otherwise, their respective rights of 
extraterritoriality. 


This Commission was to be constituted within 
three months after the adjournment of the Confer- 
ence, and to submit its findings and recommenda- 
tions within one year from its first meeting. Each 
of the powers reserved the right to accept all or 
any portion of its recommendations, and China re- 
served the right to a seat on the Commission, and 
undertook to afford it every possible facility for the 


* China Year Book (1924), p. 1164. 


[ 98 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


successful accomplishment of its tasks. The Com- 
mission should have met on or before May 6, 1922, 
but in the meantime China was involved in another 
civil war, and since then she has made repeated re- 
quests for a postponement. 

It will be remembered that Great Britain, 
America, and Japan, in 1902 and 1903, undertook 
to relinquish their extraterritorial rights when 
satisfied that (1) the state of the Chinese laws, (2) 
the arrangements for their administration, and (3) 
“other considerations” warranted them in so doing. 

Now a Law Codification Commission has been 
at work since 1914, in collaboration with the minis- 
try of justice, and since the Washington Conference 
a Commission on Extraterritoriality has also been 
organized to prepare for a visit to the International 
Commission. With the assistance of French and 
Japanese experts a number of new codes have been 
drafted, of which the Criminal Code,’ the Code of 
Criminal Procedure,” and the Civil Procedure Code 
have, after several revisions, been promulgated. 
English translations of these codes are now avail- 
able. A number of other new laws—criminal; com- 
mercial; mining; trade-mark? and copyright; labor; 
and regulations relating to courts, procedure, and 

* China Year Book (1921-22), pp. 372 ff. 

2 Ibid. (1924), pp. 267 ff. 3 Ibid. (1925), p. 816. 


[ 99 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


prisons—have also been promulgated. Mr. Es- 
carra, French adviser to the ministry of justice, is 
my authority for the statement that 

apart from a few special texts, the provisions of which are 
often very poor from the technical point of view, the civil 
codification remains in its infancy. Several years, at least, are 
required to provide China with a body of civil and commercial 
laws exhaustive enough to meet the needs of the foreigners. 
Till then, should the training and good will of the judges be 
out of discussion, nothing can be said about a proper ad- 
ministration of justice. 

He mentions that in 1920, when a crisis in the 
piece-goods trade occurred at Shanghai, resulting 
in numerous bankruptcies among the Chinese, it 
was impossible for the mixed court “‘to deal with 
the Chinese law on the matter, because the latter 
had been regarded as repealed by a decision of the 
Supreme Court” and “‘a special procedure of wind- 
ing up” had to be devised.? 

M. Georges Padoux, a distinguished French- 
man, who is a member of the Commission on 
Extraterritoriality, more recently wrote: 

The present administration of civil and penal justice in 
China affords a striking illustration of the difficulties attend- 
ing the application of legislative provisions which are not in 
harmony with the customs and prevalent ideas of the popula- 


*Escarra, The Extraterritoriality Problem, p. 20. 
‘Oth, Dols 


{ 100 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


tion. In civil matters, the law in force is mostly the Ta Ching 
Lu Li, many parts of which have become practically obsolete. 
The Judges of the Supreme Court have to display a great deal 
of ingenuity in order to adapt these old rules to the needs of 
contemporary China, and to the evolution which takes place 
now in the organization of the Chinese family. The adapta- 
tion sometimes goes so far as almost entirely to set aside the 
old rule (see the recently published summaries of Judgments 
of the Supreme Court). In penal matters a new Code has 
been enacted in 1912, but it is far ahead of the social conditions 
of a large part of the territory. It is not applied in the remote 
corners of most of the Provinces, and it is sometimes ignored 
even in Peking. During the last few years, for instance, it 
has been a common practice to order by Presidential mandate 
the confiscation of the property of overthrown political lead- 
ers, although general confiscation has been expressly abolished 
by the Penal Code.? 


The fundamental law of the republic is, or 
should be, the constitution. No one knows which 
of the various constitutions which have been pro- 
mulgated from time to time is at present supposed 
to be in force, though that, perhaps, is not a matter 
of very great importance, as at no time during the 
history of the republic has any constitution been 
more than a scrap of paper. 

There are two other features of China’s laws to 
which I must direct your attention. The first is the 
immunity of the civil officials from the ordinary 


* Chinese Social and Political Science Review (April, 1925), p. 360. 


{ 101 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


courts of the land. There is a special court, known 
as the ‘‘administrative court,” whose duties are “‘to 
try all illegal acts of public officials with the excep- 
tion of cases expressly placed by law under the 
jurisdiction of other organs.’ An attempt is thus 
made to apply the French system of droit adminis- 
tratif, bat without the safeguard of the tribunal of 
conflicts, whose duty it is to decide which cases 
come within the scope of the administrative court. 
Moreover, the administrative court is expressly 
prohibited from entertaining claims for damages.’ 
The plaintiff can only ask for rescission of the ruling 
of an official, or such modification thereof as the 
court may consider equitable. It 1s not the custom 
to accept oral testimony, but to try each case on 
written arguments. A civil official charged with a 
criminal offense is supposed to be brought before 
the ordinary court, but this is seldom done if he is 
a man of any status, immunity being conferred by 
extending the definition of what constitutes an “ad- 
ministrative act.” It is not, therefore, possible to 
secure redress in the usual way for the wrongdo- 
ings of civil officials. Second, there is the peculiar 
status of the military man in China. Soldiers, from 


* China Year Book (1925), pp. 609 ff. 


2 Law on Administrative Cases, Art. 3. (China Year Book [1925], 
p- 611.) 


{ 102 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


the lowest to the highest ranks, who commit 
offenses against the Military Penal Ordinance, the 
Criminal Code, the Police Regulations, or any 
other law for which punishment is provided, are 
tried, not by the ordinary courts, but by a court- 
martial. Any claim against them for damages must 
also be tried by a court-martial. There are at pres- 
ent nearly one-and-a-half million men under arms 
in China, and they are the most notorious breakers 
of the laws of the republic. Yet a civilian plaintiff or 
complainant can only secure the trial of a military 
man as an act of grace on the part of his superior 
or commanding officer. The proceedings, if al- 
lowed, are heard 1 camera, no lawyer being al- 
lowed to the plaintiff, no access to the record of 
testimony being permitted, and the decision of the 
court being subject to confirmation or annulment 
by the officer who authorizes the convening of the 
court-martial. Many Chinese officials, occupying 
what we should regard as civil posts, have military 
titles, and are thus removed from the jurisdiction 
of the civil courts and the administrative court. 

I now turn to the actual administration of the 
law in China. It is a sweeping but nevertheless ac- 
curate statement, that under existing conditions 
no attempt is, or can be made, to enforce the laws 
of the republic. The Law Codification Commission 


[ 103 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


may work overtime compiling new codes, some of 
which are not altogether unsatisfactory, but even 
in Peking itself the courts are unable to enforce 
them. China has had three constitutions since the 
establishment of the republic. No one can say defi- 
nitely which of them is supposed to be in force at 
the moment, as the present government does not 
even claim to be constitutional. But at no time 
have the rights and privileges which these con- 
stitutions are supposed to guarantee to her citizens 
been aught but a myth. The most glaring example 
of the wholesale violation of the law is to be found 
in the present position of opium. The Criminal 
Code promulgated in March, 1910, and amended in 
December, 1914, contains a whole chapter’ de- 
voted to penalties for cultivating, smoking, traf- 
ficking in, or transporting opium. Yet it is con- 
servatively estimated that in 1923 China produced 
between thirteen and fourteen thousand tons of 
opium, more than twelve times as much as India, 
and nearly eight times as much as the whole of 
the rest of the world (India included).? And in 
most provinces this opium was produced, sold, and 
smoked, not against, but in accordance with, the 
orders of the local officials, chiefly the militarists, 
* China Year Book (1921-22), p. 404. 
2 Ibid. (1924), chap. xix. 


[ 104 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


who derived the bulk of the revenues for the 
support of their overgrown armies from this 
source. 

I shall now give you a series of cases, a few 
among those which have come to my notice, in 
order that you may have some idea of the manner 
in which Chinese laws are actually administered. 
The first is the Tientsin land case. There lives in 
Tientsin a wealthy family, known as the Chang 
family, which had inherited a quantity of property 
from the father, the late Chang Yen-mao. This 
property had been acquired by purchase between 
the years 1898 and 1904. Last year the Chang 
brothers were told by the Police Commissioner of 
the province, a most powerful official, that he 
would like to acquire a large tract of their land, 
at a nominal price. This land happened to be mort- 
gaged to a French bank, and the brothers refused 
to sell it below the ordinary market price. A few 
days later the elder brother was practically kid- 
napped from a restaurant in the ex-German con- 
cession, in Tientsin, taken down to the police head- 
quarters in the city, and there detained until he 
had, under duress, signed a document, a facsimile 
of which is in my possession, to the effect that 
“with the desire to assist and promote the develop- 
ment of the municipality in the city” he would sell 


{ 105 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


his land “‘at a price which the police authorities 
might consider reasonable.” This undertaking he 
repudiated after his release, and the Police Com- 
missioner thereupon took possession of his land, 
and charged him with claiming ownership on forged 
title deeds. The Chang brothers then had to leave 
Tientsin to escape arrest. What is their remedy? 
They cannot sue the Police Commissioner in an 
ordinary court, as he is an official and not amenable 
to its jurisdiction. They cannot take proceedings 
in the administrative court, because he holds the 
rank of a general in the Chinese army. And if they 
were able to induce the higher military authorities 
to convene a court-martial—which 1s extremely un- 
likely—they would not be permitted to be repre- 
sented by a lawyer, to examine or cross-examine 
witnesses, or to see the record, while all the pro- 
ceedings would be held iz camera. They have 
therefore been unable to obtain any redress for 
what, on the face of it, appears a most glaring out- 
rage on the part of a high official. 

Another very interesting case was the Tientsin 
cotton case. Tientsin 1s the center of a large export 
trade in raw cotton. It has been the custom locally 
for years past to contract forward in July and 
August, when some idea of the extent of the crops 
can be obtained, for cotton to be delivered in 


[ 106 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


October, November, and December. There were 
good cotton crops in 1923, and forward contracts 
at 23-28 ¢ael/s per picul were made by foreign ex- 
porters for some 250,000 piculs. Then came the 
Japanese earthquake, with the destruction of large 
quantities of cotton and cotton goods in Japan, with 
the result that there was a sudden and unexpected 
demand for cotton in that country. The price 
soared from 23 to 28 taels to 43 taels. The deal- 
ers repudiated nearly all their forward contracts 
in order to take advantage of the Japanese demand, 
and resorted to every conceivable form of trickery 
to get their cotton through Tientsin without de- 
livering it to the original buyers. The Civil Gover- 
nor, Police Commissioner, and Chinese Chamber 
of Commerce were appealed to for aid in preventing 
this wholesale fraud. But the Police Commissioner 
maintained that the best he could do would be to 
secure 50 per cent of the cotton contracted for. The 
Civil Governor declared that forward purchase of 
cotton was an illegal gambling transaction. The 
foreign buyers, who naturally sustained heavy loss 
from their failure to meet their own obligations in 
Japan and America, then endeavored to sue the 
defaulting dealers. Writs were applied for, through 
the foreign consulates, in the ordinary way, but the 
Chinese courts refused even to serve them, and to 


{ 107 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


this day no proceedings have been permitted 
against the defaulters. 

The case of Colonel Chen is another good ex- 
ample. On February 1, 1924, when the afternoon 
express train from Peking was about to leave Feng- 
tai, about seven miles from the capital, a passenger 
car, which had come through from the Peking- 
Hankow Railway, carrying one of the President’s 
concubines with a military escort, suddenly ap- 
peared, and it was demanded that it should be 
coupled on to the express. The latter was already 
carrying its full load, and the couplings of the 
special car were not of the type required by the 
regulations for a passenger express, so the demand 
was refused by the British traffic inspector. There- 
upon one of the military escort drew a pistol and 
pointed it at his head, and the inspector had to 
agree to couple on the car. There was some mis- 
understanding at this point, the train moving 
farther up the platform, presumably to make room 
for shunting the car into position. Thereupon, 
under instructions from their superior officer, the 
military escort set upon Mr. Bessell, knocked him 
down, struck him with a pistol, and brutally kicked 
him. The train then went on its way with the car 
attached, and Colonel Chen, the concubine’s broth- 
er, who was in charge of the escort, proceeded 


{ 108 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


to Taku. Mr. Bessell was seriously injured, and 
had to undergo two operations. A strong protest, 
with a demand for the trial of the officer in charge 
of the escort, was made by the British legation. 
Mr. Bessell was a servant of the Chinese govern- 
ment who had been assaulted in the execution of 
his duty, and while endeavoring to carry out the 
government’s railway regulations, and one would 
naturally have expected the government to take 
prompt action. Instead, it resorted to every form 
of mendacity and procrastination to shield the cul- 
prits. It was pretended, at first, that Colonel Chen 
was at Wuchang, in mid-China, and that the 
Hupeh Tuchun had been instructed to deal with 
him. Although the fact that he was at Taku, with- 
in a few miles of Tientsin, could no longer be con- 
cealed, it was not until February 25, after repeated 
evasions, that action was taken. On that date the 
chief judge of the military court of the ministry of 
war, the chief of the medical department of the 
same ministry, and a personal representative of the 
President proceeded to Taku, where they inter- 
viewed Colonel Chen without the presence of any 
of the witnesses to the assault, reported that he was 
too ill to be moved, and subsequently announced 
that he had been sentenced to “twenty-eight days 
detention in his own quarter.” This farcical deci- 


[ 109 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


sion the British government refused to recognize, 
demanding the formal trial of Colonel Chen, in the 
presence of a British official, in accordance with 
the treaties. The Chinese argued that the treaties 
did not provide for the presence of a foreign official 
at a court-martial upon a military offender, and de- 
layed and prevaricated, and it was not until June 
3, 123 days after the assault, that Colonel Chen 
was actually brought up for trial. I heard some 
details of that trial subsequently from Mr. Bessell. 
He was, of course, not permitted to be represented 
legally. He was still suffering from the injuries he 
had received, and was unable to stand for more 
than a few minutes. But the military court an- 
nounced that it could not accept testimony unless 
the witness stood up to give it, and Mr. Bessell 
therefore had to give his evidence fragmentarily, 
retiring to rest whenever the pain of standing be- 
came unendurable. The officer who ordered his as- 
sault on February 1 was in uniform, and wore a 
mustache. The officer who appeared as Colonel 
Chen on this occasion was in mufti, and without a 
mustache. Mr. Bessell had seen him only for a few 
moments in the twilight, four months previously, 
and was therefore unable to make positive identi- 
fication. So Colonel Chen, who had been found 
guilty at the farcical inquiry of February 25, was 


{ 110 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


acquitted on this occasion, scapegoats being made 
of the soldiers and a subordinate officer who were 
alleged to have participated in the assault. 

I wish to mention here again the case of the 
soldier on the wall. The legation quarter in Peking 
is surrounded on three sides by loopholed walls, and 
on the south by a section of the main wall of the 
city, which has been repaired, fortified, and in- 
corporated in the defenses of the quarter, and is not 
permitted to be used by Chinese. On April 10, 
1924, the legation-quarter police found a Chinese 
soldier belonging to the bodyguard of the Minister 
of War wandering about on the wall, told him he 
was not permitted there, and asked him to come 
to the police station. There he would have been 
discharged without further trouble had he not an- 
nounced his intention of returning to the wall as 
soon as released. Accordingly, he was sent to the 
nearest Chinese police station, whence a report was 
subsequently received that he had been given four 
hundred blows (although corporal punishment is 
supposed to be illegal) and confined to barracks for 
several weeks. Three days later he reappeared in 
the streets of Peking, and committed a series of 
assaults upon foreigners. He assaulted in succes- 
sion, and without provocation, an American, an 
Italian, and a British subject. The American was 


{ 111 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


assaulted in one of the main streets of the city, but 
as the assailant was a soldier, the Chinese police, 
who witnessed the occurrence, made no attempt to 
interfere. After assaulting the Italian, also without 
molestation, he again mounted the legation section 
of the wall, and committed a savage assault upon a 
British subject who was walking there. He was ar- 
rested, after a violent struggle, by the legation 
police, assisted by a number of coolies whom they 
summoned to their assistance, and taken to the 
legation-quarter police station, where he was de- 
tained, the Chinese authorities being notified of 
what had occurred. On this occasion the apparent- 
ly demented soldier found himself a national hero. 
The wildest stories regarding his treatment ap- 
peared in the Chinese press, and it was actually 
demanded that the British subject, who had struck 
back when attacked, should be charged with as- 
sault. Mass meetings were held in Peking at which 
the recall of the British Minister was demanded, 
and Trotzky sent messages of sympathy to the 
victim of “foreign imperialism,” and addressed 
noisy meetings at Moscow which passed resolu- 
tions of sympathy with the soldier. Eventually, 
under pressure from the legations concerned, the 
man was brought up for trial, but to avoid the 
presence of foreign officials at another court-mar- 


{ 112 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


tial, he was first dismissed from the army, and 
handed over to a civil magistrate, who sentenced 
him to a term of imprisonment. He should prob- 
ably have been sent to a lunatic asylum, and I only 
cite this case as throwing light on Chinese mental- 
ity where foreigners are victims of outrages. 

As a final instance of the immunity of the 
militarist from the law of the land, I may refer 
briefly to the case of the Christian general, Feng 
Yu-hsiang. He had been invited, on February 16, 
1924, to dine with the American minister, Dr. 
Schurman. The regulations of the legation quarter, 
which is administered and policed under the orders 
of the diplomatic body, prohibit motor cars from 
entering the quarter at excessive speed, with 
blinding headlights, or with armed escorts on the 
footboards. All these regulations were violated by 
the Christian general on the night in question, and 
after wild blowing of police whistles his car was 
eventually compelled to pull up by a policeman 
who stood directly in its path. The Christian gen- 
eral thereupon alighted in a fury, struck the police- 
man, took away his baton, and, according to the 
statements of the police and an eyewitness, ordered 
his escort to kill the policeman, and he would be 
responsible. Fortunately, this order, if actually 
given, was disobeyed. The car then proceeded on 


{ 113 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


its way to the American legation, two more police- 
man being struck with the captured baton, en 
route. Needless to say, no redress was given, nor 
apology offered, by the perpetrator of this assault. 

I have in my possession notes of two cases in 
which German doctors in Tientsin were defendants 
in criminal charges, which throw considerable light 
upon the treatment to which foreigners deprived of 
their extraterritorial rights are now subjected. In 
the first case, the doctor was charged, under Article 
326 of the Chinese Criminal Code, with causing the 
death of a boy-patient upon whom he had per- 
formed an operation. The article in question reads: 

Whoever fails to give the necessary attention to his occu- 
pation and in consequence causes death or injury to any per- 
son shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not 
severer than the fourth degree (1.e., more than one year, but 


less than three years] or detention, or fine of not more than 
two thousand yuan [dollars]. 


The operation which was the basis of this charge 
was performed on the neck of the patient, under an 
anesthetic, on June 3, 1922. The patient died dur- 
ing the operation, and the doctor testified that the 
amount of chloroform used was very small; that it 
was quite fresh, having been purchased the day 
before; and that the heart of the patient was prob- 
ably too weak to support an anesthetic, though this 


[ 114 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


weakness was not apparent in the examination 
that took place previous to its administration. He 
ascribed the death to one of those rare cases of in- 
ability to support chloroform, which should be con- 
sidered a misfortune for which no one was to blame. 
On the death being reported, the Chinese coroner 
made an examination. This functionary was a 
barber—who in China comes from the lowest class 
—without any scientific training. He made a 
superficial examination of the body, declared that 
the boy was dead, and that he had died not from 
the operation, but from the anesthetic—which was 
what the doctor had told him. The doctor was then 
charged before the local court, which gave judg- 
ment on July 6, condemning the accused to a fine of 
two thousand yuan (the maximum) for a violation 
of Article 326. , 

An appeal was taken to the higher provincial 
court, which on September 28, 1922, gave a judg- 
ment upholding the decision of the local court. The 
case was then carried to the Taliyuano, or Supreme 
Court, in Peking, which, on December 14, ordered 
a retrial. This took place in the higher provincial 
court, which on April 3 again found the accused 
guilty, but lowered the fine to one thousand yuan. 
The case was again appealed to the Supreme Court, 
which, on August 9, 1923, dismissed the second 


{115 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


judgment of the provincial court, and ordered yet 
another trial. The third judgment of the provincial 
court was delivered on May 12, 1924, the accused 
once more being condemned to a fine of one thou- 
sand yuan. The Supreme Court on October 27 
ordered yet another trial, and on January 21 of 
this year the case against the accused was with- 
drawn by virtue of the general amnesty proclaimed 
by the provisional chief executive. It 1s under- 
stood, however, that a civil action for damages is 
still pending. During the trials of this case, facts, 
the opinions of the complainants, and arguments 
were inextricably mixed up by the court. Much of 
the evidence offered by the defendant was refused. 
The report of the coroner, who as already stated had 
no scientific experience, and made no attempt to 
perform an autopsy, was accepted as definite evi- 
dence, although it contained a quantity of super- 
stitious nonsense. Expert evidence from competent 
medical men was rejected. In the higher court the 
cause of the death and the blame for bringing it 
about were treated as one and the same thing, the 
onus of proving that there had been no negligence 
being placed on the accused. In the sixth judg- 
ment (May, 1924), the court refused to take into 
consideration evidence favorable to the accused, 
and the coroner’s report was again made use of, 


{ 116 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


though its introduction had been one of the reasons 
of the Supreme Court for ordering a retrial. As fur- 
ther evidence of the accused’s guilt, the relatives on 
this occasion stated that they had not been willing 
that chloroform should be used. The Supreme 
Court in its final judgment held that there was no 
proof of the lack of consent of the relatives. 

The other case was similar in the course it ran, 
but even more glaring in its continuous miscar- 
riages of justice. For in this case the woman who 
died had been successfully operated upon and had 
made satisfactory progress for seven days, when a 
friend called upon her and violently upbraided her 
for undergoing the operation. There was, accord- 
ing to the evidence, a heated quarrel, as a result of 
which the patient’s heart collapsed, and though 
every effort was made to undo the mischief, she be- 
came weaker and weaker, and died the following 
afternoon. In this instance the original penalty of 
two thousand yuan was imposed at successive re- 
trials, until the case was terminated by the amnes- 
ty. And it is alleged that the accused was found 
guilty mainly as a result of a mistranslation of the 
evidence of a foreign medical practitioner. The evi- 
dence of the quarrel which caused the patient’s col- 
lapse was ignored. 

It is not surprising, I think, that one of these 


1 117] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


German doctors, who was in attendance on Dr. Sun 
Yat-sen during his stay in Tientsin, told me that 
under no circumstances would he undertake a seri- 
ous operation on any prominent Chinese. These 
cases are also of interest as revealing the reluctance 
or inability of the Supreme Court finally to quash a 
case in which injustice has been done, and the man- 
ner in which provincial courts ignore the rulings of 
the Supreme Court as to what evidence can be 
admitted. 

I might go on here to quote some ridiculous in- 
stances which followed the assumption of juris- 
diction over the Russians in Manchuria, where a 
man charged with breaking a window found that 
he had been tried for murdering “Mr. Window”; 
where complainants sometimes found that they 
had been mistaken for the accused, and sentenced 
accordingly, and on one occasion, at least, judg- 
ment was given in a civil case against one of the 
witnesses, the judge remarking, when this was 
brought to his attention, that “the court knew 
what it was doing.” I have time, however, only to 
cite one case in which Russians are involved, which 
will show how hollow are China’s pretensions that 
the judiciary is independent and free from all inter- 
ference on the part of the executive or legislative 
powers. 


{ 118 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


After the failure of the Koltchak régime in 
Siberia, the Chinese government reached an agree- 
ment with the Russo-Asiatic Bank regarding the 
operation of the Chinese Eastern Railway, then vir- 
tually bankrupt, as a result of which it was to be 
controlled by a board consisting of five Chinese and 
three Russian members. Following this agreement, 
B. V. Ostroumov, an engineer of considerable ex- 
perience, who had been concerned in the construc- 
tion of the Siberian, South Siberian, and Bokhara 
railways, was appointed general manager. With 
the approval and authority of the board, he intro- 
duced reforms which had the result of converting 
the railway from a virtually bankrupt concern into 
a paying enterprise, with trains and rolling stock 
excelled by few other railways in any part of the 
world. Ostroumov was no politician, and was not 
in sympathy with bolshevism, and accordingly in- 
curred the animosity of the soviets, who were only 
biding their time to revenge themselves upon him. 
On May 31, 1924, China signed an agreement with 
soviet Russia, under which she recognized the Rus- 
sian government, and agreed to the control of the 
Chinese Eastern Railway by a Board of Directors, 
composed of five Chinese and five Russians, 
nominated by their respective governments. This 
agreement Chang T’so-lin refused to recognize, with 


{ 119 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the result that it was inoperative in Manchuria, 
and over the Chinese Eastern Railway. During the 
civil war of the autumn of 1924, however, Chang 
Tso-lin realized that the soviets might make them- 
selves troublesome in his rear, and accordingly he 
entered into a separate agreement, on much the 
same terms as that signed in Peking. This agree- 
ment was signed at Mukden, on September 20. 
On October 3, Ostroumov was summarily dismis- 
sed from his position, arrested, and placed 1n soli- 
tary confinement; the same treatment was meted 
out to Gondatti, chief of the land department of 
the railway. No charge whatsoever was preferred 
against either of them, although the Chinese 
Criminal Procedure Code prescribes that no person 
may be arrested without a charge being formu- 
lated. Ostroumovy was questioned from time to 
time by the public prosecutor, who pretended that 
he had been arrested to save his extradition to 
Russia. I cannot enter into the numerous viola- 
tions of the Code of Criminal Procedure that have 
been perpetrated since his arrest. It was not until 
December 20 that he was summoned before the 
examining magistrate and told the nature of the 
charges against him. These charges related to 
transactions which’ had been inquired into, and 
sanctioned by, the old Board of Directors (which 


{ 120 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


had a majority of Chinese), and their refutation re- 
quired access to numerous documents in the rail- 
way company’s archives. This access Ostroumov 
has been consistently denied, though on several 
occasions the Judge has undertaken to secure and 
produce the documents required—a promise he has 
never fulfilled. Ostroumov, a man certified to be in 
a dangerous state of health, has been kept in soli- 
tary confinement, and treated little differently 
from a condemned criminal, ever since October 3. 
The general amnesty which, as promulgated, un- 
questionably applied to his and Gondatti’s cases— 
although they asked not for pardon but for justice 
—has been overruled by the Manchurian authori- 
ties, who calmly altered it to suit their own ends. 
Successive Judges have been intrusted with the con- 
duct of the case, and have pleaded illness, obtained 
a transfer elsewhere, or resigned. Bail, which 
would have been forthcoming to the extent of 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, if necessary, has 
been refused. And I understand that an appeal to 
the soviet Ambassador, who is unquestionably re- 
sponsible for this travesty of justice, met with the 
curt response that he would intercede for Ostrou- 
mov only if he undertook to stand his trial in 
Moscow—for offenses, be it noted, which are al- 
leged to have been committed outside of Russian 


{ 121 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


jurisdiction, during a period when the soviet gov- 
ernment was not recognized by China, and under 
orders of a Sino-Russian directorate. At the first 
public hearing of the Ostroumov case, on June 4, 
a telegram was introduced by the accused, pur- 
porting to have been sent by the Chinese president 
of the railway board, ordering his colleagues to see 
that evidence incriminating Ostroumov was pro- 
cured “‘so as not to cause protests from diplomatic 
circles.” 

I may sum up the present condition of the ad- 
ministration of justice in China by saying that if 
the rule of law is understood to mean, as Dicey 
says, that “no man can be lawfully made to suffer, 
except for a distinct breach of a law established in 
the ordinary manner, before the ordinary courts,”’ 
and that “no man is above the law,” it 1s non- 
existent in China. The provincial courts are, for 
the most part, under the control of the militarists 
in power in the particular locality. Peking will 
issue a trade-mark law, prescribing the levy of sub- 
stantial fees for the protection of trade-marks 
throughout China; Canton will retort with a trade- 
mark law of its own, which prescribes local registra- 
tion and payment of fees to secure protection with- 
in its jurisdiction. Peking will order the establish- 
ment of certain courts of justice, which the Gover- 


{ 122 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


nor of Chekiang will abolish a few months later 
because he does not approve of them.’ All the lead- 
ing authorities agree that far from the state of 
Chinese laws, and the arrangements for their ad- 
ministration having improved of late, there has 
been serious retrogression. 


Indeed, so far as the control by the central government 
of China of the courts in the provinces is concerned, the situa- 
tion is not as satisfactory under the Republic as it was under 
the Empire.” 

Although circumstances have not altered except for the 
worse, the extraterritoriality problem enters upon a new phase 
with the decision now reached..... Now and for a remote 
future, abolition of extraterritorial jurisdiction is out of the 
question. 

Save that the necessity to the Chinese people of European 
and American commodities has immeasurably increased, there 
is little, if any, improvement in the situation at the present 
time [compared with that in 1840].4 


The law to the contrary notwithstanding, tor- 
ture 1s still in general use in Chinese tribunals. As 
a Chinese official put it, in attempting to justify the 


* Willoughby, Foreign Rights and Interests in China, p. 69. 

2 Ibid., p. 69. (Dr. Willoughby was legal adviser to the republic, 
1916-17.) 

3 Escarra, op. cit., pp. 1 and 18. (Mr. Escarra is legal adviser to 
the Chinese government.) 

4Sir Havilland de Sausmarez, chief judge, British Supreme 
Court, Shanghai, 1905-21, in a lecture at King’s College, April, 1925. 


{ 123 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


use of torture in a case in which it had admittedly 
been employed: 


If you are going to adopt foreign methods, you will never 
recover the stolen property, you can never get evidence, and 
you can never depend on it. We have got a code of regulations, 
but underneath the surface we have to carry on in our own 


old way. 


Summary executions are still frequent. A dis- 
patch from Shanghai dated May 18, 1925, records 
the execution of a newspaper editor there, after a 
summary trial by court-martial, because the local 
general was enraged at the publication of an article 
alleging extortion on the part of the Army. The 
unfortunate man offered to bring evidence in sup- 
port of this allegation, but permission to do so was 
refused, and he was shot.? 

I have here a photograph of the scene following 
a roundup of alleged bandits in Lintsing County, 
not more than a day’s journey from Tientsin, early 
in 1924. It is too harrowing to show around, but 
the fact is that over one hundred men, women, and 
children were butchered in cold blood, and subse- 
quently mutilitated by the troops, who were so 
proud of their work that they suspended the 
butchering for an hour or two while a half-dozen 


™ Quoted at the British Chambers of Commerce Conference, 1923. 
2 Shanghai Evening News, May 19, 1925. 


[ 124 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


of the victims were still living, in order to have 
them photographed. A missionary familiar with 
the details writes further (February, 1924): 

As if this were not enough, four days ago a memorial 
service was held for the soldiers killed in the campaign, at 
which time three of the bandits held for the purpose were 
tortured for over three hours, an immense crowd of Chinese 
watching the while. From these living victims the torturers 
cut the ears, the nose, and then slices of flesh from different 
parts of the body. These things seem hard to believe in this 
day and age, but they have taken place within a week in our 
own city, and members of our force of workers were present 
and witnessed them. 

I come, finally, to the “other considerations” 
which must be taken into account when discussing 
the question of the abolition of extraterritoriality. 
I shall do no more than mention the fact that it is 
to extraterritoriality that the foreigner in China 
owes his immunity from the arbitrary and hap- 
hazard taxation imposed by the local Chinese au- 
thorities upon their own countrymen, and from the 
exactions and levies of the militarists. It is to ex- 
traterritoriality that he owes the existence of for- 
eign settlements and concessions, where he can 
reside under hygienic regulations and in conditions 
of reasonable safety, free, as a rule, from incursions 
of Chinese troops and bandits, and enjoy a measure 
of self-government. These are privileges not lightly 


{125 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


to be sacrificed. But I shall urge, in conclusion, 
that the most important of those other considera- 
tions are not foreign but Chinese interests. Irre- 
sponsible Chinese may clamor for the abolition of 
extraterritoriality, but they flock into the conces- 
sions for safety whenever a civil war is 1n progress. 
And it is, after all, not unreasonable that the treaty 
powers should demand that certain standards of 
justice should be applied to the Chinese themselves 
before their courts. are permitted to experiment 
upon foreigners. The only foreign advocates of the 
abolition of extraterritoriality that I know of are 
small groups of missionaries, who are actuated 
more by the spirit of martyrs than by practical con- 
siderations in advocating this step. Their view is 
not shared by the majority of the missionary body. 
I cannot, perhaps, do better than conclude this lec- 
ture with a quotation from an address given by a 
veteran missionary in a lecture at Kuling, in 
August, IgIo: 

But the thought which I am anxious to emphasize in clos- 
ing this lecture is this—that China cannot come to deal fairly, 
rightly, and humanely, with foreigners alone. Every guarantee 
given to foreigners for their proper treatment as dwellers in 
China must soon become a guarantee, also, to the people of 
China, that they too shall henceforth receive for themselves a 


like justice and consideration to that which the superior power 
of the Western nations has demanded as a right in the case of 


{ 126 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


every citizen coming from Western lands....: Let every 
patriotic Chinaman .... think with himself: 

“This state of liberty, this security for life and property in 
China, this immunity from torture and from official oppression, 
corruption and injustice which foreign governments today 
demand from China for their respective countries, enforcing 
the demand where necessary through foreign consuls and by 
diplomatic pressure—this, and nothing less than this, is what 
we Chinese have to seek to obtain as a matter of course from 
our rulers for ourselves. We shall mot get it, however, by first 
depriving the foreigner of it, or by subjecting him to all the 
injustice to which our own nationals subject us.’ 


* Rey. Arnold Foster, B.A., Extraterritoriality in China. 


{ 127 | 





IV 
CHINA’S FOREIGN RELATIONS 


The countries that have the greatest com- 
mercial interests in China today are Great Britain, 
Japan, and the United States, in the order named. 
France and Russia have important political inter- 
ests, though for the moment Russia’s trade is 
negligible. Until recent years the common rights of 
the so-called treaty powers were exercised through 
the diplomatic body at Peking, which acted as a 
unit in matters of general foreign interest, though 
the policital aspirations of the powers were not al- 
ways identical. Since 1914, however, there has — 
been a complete change in the situation. The diplo- 
matic body has ceased to act as a unit. In most 
cases in which there have been deliberate violations 
of the treaties the treaty powers, that is, those 
powers which still exercise extraterritorial rights, 
act together. The non-treaty powers, those like 
Austria and Germany which have lost their extra- 
territorial rights, the new European states which 
have never acquired them, and some of the Central 
and South American republics which are in the 
same position, form another diplomatic group. 


[ 129 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


And last of all comes soviet Russia, whose Am- 
_bassador, ever since the recognition of the Moscow 
government by China, has deliberately ranged him- 
self in opposition to the treaty powers, and has 
publicly incited, and secretly intrigued with, the 
Chinese to oppose the so-called “unequal treaties.” 

I propose, first of all, to deal as briefly as pos- 
sible with those questions in which all of the treaty 
powers are interested, and then refer in detail to the 
interests and policies of individual states. The 
treaty powers have a common interest in the en- 
forcement, until such time as the Chinese have 
shown themselves capable of assuming greater re- 
sponsibilities, of extraterritorial rights, with which 
I have dealt in a separate lecture. Their next most 
important common interest is the Chinese customs 
tariff. 

Until the conclusion of the so-called Opium 
War, which, as I have previously pointed out, was 
in reality a war to establish the right of foreign 
traders to pursue their avocations under conditions 
comparable to those prevailing in all civilized coun- 
tries, China had no regular customs tariff. Foreign 
merchants were permitted to trade only at Canton, 
where they were subjected to all kinds of indignities 
and restrictions, and to any imposts that the local 
Chinese authorities cared to exact. The Treaty of 


[ 130 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


Nanking, signed in 1842, in addition to providing 
for the cession of Hongkong and the opening of 
five Chinese ports to foreign residence and trade, 
stipulated that “a fair and regular tariff of export 
and import customs and other dues”’ should be 
drawn up, and that on payment of a further fixed 
percentage as transit duty, foreign imports might 
be transported to any province or city in the in- 
terior of China without further taxation. A tariff 
of duties, calculated on a 5 per cent ad valorem 
basis, was subsequently agreed upon, and it was 
arranged that the transit duty should not exceed 
“the present rates, which are upon a moderate 
scale.’”’ Since the Tientsin Treaty of 1860, the im- 
port and export duties of China have been fixed at 
§ per cent ad valorem, and the transit duty, which 
is supposed to confer immunity from all other 
taxation in transit on imports, and on commodities 
brought from the interior to the coast for export, 
has been fixed at 23 per cent. 

The customs administration came under for- 
eign supervision—first, that of Mr. Lay, and a few 
years later, that of Sir Robert Hart—as a result of 
the situation created in Shanghai by the capture of 
that city by rebels in 1853, and worked so satis- 
factorily that it has ever since been maintained. 
Under the direction of the late Sir Robert Hart, 


{131 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


who became the trusted adviser of the imperial 
Chinese government, the whole system of collect- 
ing import and export duties was systematized, 
the central government for the first time in its his- 
tory receiving an exact account of all duties col- 
lected which, after payment of the expenses of col- 
lection, were entirely at its disposal. The customs 
administration also assumed responsibility for the 
buoying and lighting of the coast, and inaugurated 
the Chinese postal service. In 1898 the Chinese 
government gave an undertaking that the inspec- 
tor-general of customs should be a British subject 
as long as British trade predominated. 

Following the Taiping rebellion the provincial 
authorities began to impose a new tax, known as 
“likin,” on goods in transit. It was at first a trifling 
impost, though as time went on it became a serious 
handicap to the movement of commodities in the 
interior, not so much because the tax levied by any 
individual likin station was very heavy, but be- 
cause of the multiplication of such tax offices. Ac- 
cording to Morse, along the Grand Canal between 
Hangchow and Chinkiang, “likin stations, alter- 
nately collecting and preventive, are established at 
distances averaging ten miles one from the other; 
and in that part of Kiangsu lying south of the 
Yangtze, there are over 250 stations, collecting and 


{ 132 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


preventive.” Even where the immunity conferred 
by the transit pass is recognized, goods in transit 
are subjected to heavy delay, which can often only 
be overcome by submission to official blackmail. 
Likin is recognized, by Chinese and foreign mer- 
chants alike, as a serious obstacle to trade in the 
interior, and both are in favor of its abolition. 
The first serious attempt to secure its abolition 
was made in the Anglo-Chinese commercial treaty 
of 1902, in which Great Britain agreed to an in- 
crease of the import duty from 5 per cent to not 
more than 124 per cent, and of the export duty 
from § to not more than 74 per cent, in the event 
of the complete abolition of likin. The American 
and Japanese commercial treaties of the following 
year contained similar provisions. At Versailles, 
and again at Washington, the Chinese delegation 
put forward a demand for tariff autonomy. At 
Washington, while disclaiming any immediate in- 
tention of interfering with the present system of 
administration of the customs, the Chinese argued 
that the present tariff was unfair and unscientific, 
as it imposed a uniform rate on necessaries and 
luxuries, and there was no reciprocity, certain 
articles, such as tobacco and spirits, on which very 
heavy duties were imposed in other countries, en- 
tering China on the § per cent basis. They argued, 


{ 133 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


further, that with the present tariff China did not 
secure a revenue commensurate with her require- 
ments. They asked for an immediate increase of 
the import tariff to 124 per cent (irrespective of the 
abolition of likin) and the right to impose duties 
not exceeding 25 per cent ad valorem at their dis- 
cretion, at the end of a five-year period. As a mat- 
ter of fact, certain of the arguments advanced by 
the Chinese delegates would not bear very close 
examination, for they overlooked the fact that 
everything entering China pays duty at the rate of 
5 per cent except foreign rice, cereals, and flour; 
gold and silver, both bullion and coin; printed 
books, charts, maps, periodicals, and newspapers. 
Taking the 1922 trade figures as a basis, one will 
find that on the total volume of trade (import and 
exports) the average percentages of customs rev- 
enue in the countries mentioned worked out as 
follows: 


Percentage 
esi bere Rae rnmm Mnm Aa, neta), Atay Se 32 
Vapani netic ite tee intas eee 2 
GreatiBritaineseeecs acne 6 
AM erICAN aL AON iccs cae sun ane 3 
France gcisiaen ceiteou eee 4x 


Had the 124 per cent import duty and the 7% per 
cent export duty been in force at that date, the 
average percentage of duties on China’s trade 


[ 134 | 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


would have worked out at 7.2, which is consid- 
erably higher than that of any of the countries 
mentioned above. 

The Washington Conference was not disposed, 
for various reasons, chief among which were appre- 
hensions that tariff autonomy would result in the 
exploitation of foreign trade for the subsidizing of 
China’s militarists, to accede to China’s demands. 
But the subcommittee was greatly impressed with 
certain evidence which was placed before it tending 
to show that in the event of a reasonable compro- 
mise with the central government on the subject of 
taxation, the illegal imposts which are being levied 
in the provinces would be abandoned. The British 
American Tobacco Company and various other 
foreign tobacco interests, a few months previous to 
the Conference, had entered into an agreement 
with the National Tobacco and Wine Administra- 
tion under which payment of certain taxes to that 
administration were to free their cigarettes from 
all other taxation in the interior, any illegal taxes 
imposed being refunded out of the taxes paid at the 
factories. This agreement was reported to be work- 
ing smoothly, and offered some hope that a settle- 
ment of the likin question, on the basis of the 1g02 
treaty, might really prove feasible. The Confer- 
ence, therefore, agreed to the assembling of a 


{135 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


special conference in China, within three months of 
the ratification of the Customs Tariff Treaty, 
signed at Washington on February 6, 1922, which 
was to “‘prepare the way for the speedy abolition of 
likin,” and also to 

consider the interim provisions to be applied prior to the 
abolition of likin . . . . and it shall authorize the levying of a 
surtax on dutiable imports as from such date, for such pur- 
poses, and subject to such conditions, as it may determine. 
The surtax shall be at a uniform rate of 23 per centum ad 
valorem, provided that in the case of certain articles of luxury 
which, in the opinion of the special conference, can bear a 
greater increase without unduly impeding trade, the total sur- 
tax may be increased, but may not exceed 5 per centum ad 
valorem. 

The special conference has not yet assembled, 
owing to a protracted dispute with France over the 
resumption of payments of the annual Boxer- 
indemnity instalments, which had been suspended 
for five years from December 1, 1917, when China 
entered the war. The French claimed that such 
payments must be made in gold francs, and the 
Chinese government, after twice recognizing this 
obligation, was influenced by political agitation to 
repudiate it, and to insist that payment be made in 
paper francs. The controversy was only settled in 
April, 1925, and in a characteristic manner, the 
government being bribed with the release of the 


[ 136 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


two years’ accumulated indemnity instalments, 
and agreeing to meet the indemnity payments in 
gold dollars! 

In the meantime, events can hardly have been 
said to have strengthened China’s claims to tariff 
autonomy. The tobacco agreement, to which I 
have referred, has been violated in nearly every 
province, the militarists imposing an additional 
tax of 20 per cent ad valorem. In Canton, Shansi, 
and other centers, attempts have been made and 
are still being made to impose additional taxation 
on kerosene, piece goods, and other foreign imports. 
In the latter part of 1923, an international naval 
demonstration at Canton was necessary to prevent 
Dr. Sun Yat-sen from carrying out this threat to 
seize the Canton customs, thus disintegrating the 
only fiscal service which has been maintained in- 
tact throughout the troubles of the past thirteen 
years. 

The likin collection was estimated in 1911, the 
last year of the Manchu dynasty, at just over forty- 
four million ¢ae/s, or sixty-six million dollars. The 
latest estimate places it at thirty-nine million dol- 
lars. Neither of these estimates can be considered 
reliable. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, 
of parasites live on the likin collectorate, the gross 
total of which probably exceeds the total maritime- 


1 137 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


customs revenues—one hundred and four million 
dollars in 1924. The militarists now in control in 
various parts of the country are taxing trade indis- 
criminately and in complete disregard of China’s 
treaty obligations. It is, at present, inconceivable 
that this huge vested interest—likin—can be got 
rid of by any scheme devised by the Chinese gov- 
ernment or the powers. And foreign trade, already 
seriously handicapped by the numerous illegal 
taxes now imposed, would probably be completely 
strangled if, in addition to the levy of these taxes, 
the central government—which is also under mili- 
tarist domination—were permitted to impose any 
import duties it thought fit. 

The special conference, if it should assemble 
this year, will be confronted with a series of most 
complicated problems, for China’s foreign credi- 
tors, especially the Japanese, are clamoring for the 
payment of some, at least, of her long-overdue ob- 
ligations, and the proposed 25 per cent surtax— 
which is only to be permitted conditionally—would 
be a mere drop in the bucket if it had to be applied 
to the discharge of foreign debts. 

The maintenance of American, British, French, 
Italian,and Japanese garrisons in Peking and Tient- 
sin, and along the railway between Peking and Shan- 
haikuan (on the seashore), is the outcome of the 


{ 138 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


Boxer Rising of 1900. The peace protocol signed 
in 1901 provided for the establishment of a lega- 
tion quarter in Peking, which the powers concerned 
had the right to put in a state of defense, and to 
administer, and from which they had the right to 
exclude all Chinese. The Chinese government also 
recognized the right of the treaty powers to occupy 
certain points along the railway between Peking 
and Shanhaikuan “‘in order to maintain free com- 
munication between the capital and the sea,” and 
agreed to raze the forts at Taku. When the peace 
protocol was signed, the Chinese city of Tientsin 
was still under foreign military control, and the so- 
called Tientsin provincial government was only 
abolished after China had accepted further condi- 
tions, which included the exercise of foreign mili- 
tary jurisdiction over the railway and a zone ex- 
tending to two miles each side of 1t—to be exercised 
only for the protection of the railway—and the 
obligation not to station Chinese troops within 
twenty /i (about seven miles) of Tientsin. By the 
exercise of the powers then conceded the foreign 
military commanders could have prevented the use 
of the railway by Chinese troops engaged in mili- 
tary operations, but unfortunately an undesirable 
precedent was created in Ig11, when it was agreed 
that imperialistic and republican forces should be 


{ 139 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


permitted the use of the railway as long as they re- 
frained from damaging the bridges or track. Con- 
sequently, in every civil war that has since occurred 
in North China, the Peking-Mukden line has been 
overrun by Chinese troops belonging to the rival 
armies, with the result that on each occasion the 
operation of the line has been completely disorgan- 
ized, and serious damage has been done to track 
and equipment, especially the latter. 

The combined foreign garrisons in North China 
number less than five thousand officers and men, 
and with this force it is obviously impracticable to 
guard two hundred and sixty miles of railway, 
swarming with Chinese troops, as well as garrison- 
ing Peking and Tientsin. In practice, what is usu- 
ally done is to station small detachments at various 
points along the line to guard the bridges, while as 
soon as the railway is completely blocked by 
Chinese military incompetence—which invariably 
happens—so-called “international trains,” with an 
armed escort of fifty to eighty men of various na- 
tionalities, are run between Peking and Tientsin, 
and Tientsin and Shanhaikuan, to maintain com- 
munication ““between the capital and the sea.” 

At Versailles, and again at Washington, the 
Chinese maintained that the necessity for the pres- 
ence of foreign garrisons in North China had 


[ 140 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


ceased to exist (the conditions which led to their 
being stationed in North China having disap- 
peared), and requested their removal. The powers 
represented at Washington were skeptical, but 
agreed, when so requested by the Chinese gov- 
ernment, to appoint delegates to an impartial 
Commission of Inquiry into this question. China 
has not since attempted to convene this Com- 
mission, and recent events scarcely support her 
boast that she is capable of assuring the protec- 
tion of foreign lives and property within her terri- 
tory. In 1920, 1922, and again in 1924, Tientsin 
owed its immunity from molestation by Chinese 
military rabble to the presence and watchfulness 
of the foreign garrisons. 

Britain still claims the largest volume of trade 
with China, though her political influence today 
can hardly be considered as important as that of 
Japan. In addition to her commercial interests, she 
has other important interests which raise serious 
issues between the British and Chinese govern- 
ments. I need not dwell here upon China’s obliga- 
tions to Great Britain in respect to opium suppres- 
sion, merely mentioning that the cessation of the 
export of Indian opium to China, at a substantial 
cost to India, was conditional upon the suppression 
of the cultivation of home-grown opium. China 


{ 141 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


today produces at least twelve times as much 
opium as India. 

The Peking-Mukden, Shanghai-Nanking, 
Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo, Canton-Kowloon, 
Tientsin-Pukow (southern section), and Taokow- 
Chinghua railways have been constructed with 
British capital, and in addition to the capital 
obligations arising out of their construction and 
equipment, the Chinese government owes British 
concerns large sums for railway equipment sup- 
plied but not yet paid for. She has defaulted again 
and again, also, upon the loans raised from the 
Marconi Company for the erection of wireless sta- 
tions, and from the Vickers Company for the sup- 
ply of a number of aeroplanes designed exclusively 
for commercial use, but actually seized and utilized 
by the militarists within a few months of delivery. 

Great Britain has concessions, over which she ex- 
ercises municipal control, usually through an elect- 
ed council, in Amoy, Canton, Hankow, Kiukiang, 
Chinkiang, Tientsin, and Newchwang. The cen- 
tral and most important district in Shanghai was 
originally set apart for British residence and trade, 
but was amalgamated with the American concession 
to form the international settlement in 1863. In 
general, the policy enunciated by Lord Aberdeen in 
1841, that “we seek no exclusive advantages, and 


{ 142 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


demand nothing that we shall not-willingly see en- 
joyed by the subjects of all other nations,” has 
been consistently followed. Indeed, it may reason- 
ably be claimed that to Great Britain is mainly due 
the credit of breaking down the barriers to foreign 
trade in China, and of opening the way for for- 
eigners of all nationalities to reside and do business 
in China under conditions approximating those 
prevailing in Western lands. In her concessions, 
for instance, permission has, as a rule, been readily 
given to individuals and firms of other nationalities 
(Chinese in some instances excepted) to lease or 
purchase property for residence or trade, providing 
they will agree to abide by the local municipal 
regulations. The Tientsin land regulations pro- 
vide for the election of at least one American to the 
Municipal Council, annually, in recognition, I take 
it, of the fact that a small strip of territory origi- 
nally granted to America has been turned over to 
the British municipality for administrative pur- 
poses. 

In addition to her concessions, Great Britain 
owns the island of Hongkong and a portion of the 
mainland opposite, and, in 1898, in the interests 
of security—the port being exposed to attack from 
the surrounding hills—obtained a ninety-nine-year 
lease of a further area on the mainland, in the 


[ 143 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


vicinity of what is known as Kowloon. She also 
holds on lease two hundred and eighty-eight square 
miles of territory surrounding Weihatiwei, in Shan- 
tung. It was at the instance of the Chinese them- 
selves that Great Britain applied for the lease of 
this territory—then in Japanese military occupa- 
tion—as an offset to Russian’s occupation of the 
Liaotung peninsula, with Port Arthur and Dairen. 
The original lease was to remain in effect “for so 
long a period as Port Arthur shall remain in the 
occupation of Russia.’ But the Chinese govern- 
ment never suggested the restoration of Weihaiwet 
when Russia was supplanted by Japan in the Liao- 
tung peninsula, it apparently being assumed on 
both sides that the lease would be prolonged for so 
so long as Port Arthur was in alien hands. At the 
Washington Conference, however, with a view to 
promoting a settlement of the Shantung question, 
the British delegation announced its government's 
willingness to restore Weihaiwei to China, subject 
to satisfactory arrangements being made for its 
continued use as a sanatorium and summer health 
resort for the British far eastern squadron. There 
are no other ports suitable for this purpose in 
North China except Chefoo and Tsingtao. The 
American fleet always spends the summer at 
Chefoo, where there is no room for any more 


1 144 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


vessels, and Tsingtao is developing into an im- 
portant commercial port, where the presence of a 
number of foreign warships would not be welcome. 
An Anglo-Chinese Commission to negotiate the 
rendition of Weihaiwei met there in September, 
1922, and an agreement was actually signed in 
May, 1923. But the Peking government then de- 
manded modifications which the British govern- 
ment would not accept in their entirety, and nego- 
tiations have since been indefinitely suspended. I 
may mention that a suggestion for which I may 
claim to have been responsible was embodied in the 
draft agreement, by which the Chinese govern- 
ment should undertake, instead of repaying the 
money spent by the British government on the 
development of Weihaiwei, to set aside a fixed sum 
annually for a period of ten years, for the construc- 
tion of roads linking up the territory with the 
hinterland. 

Another Sino-British problem that has defied 
solution so far is the status of Tibet. Tibet is con- 
tiguous to India, and India regards it as a matter 
of vital importance that her Tibetan frontier 
should remain secure, and free from the frequent 
disturbances which have been caused by Chinese 
efforts to conquer the Tibetans, and keep them in 
subjection by force. Several times British agents 


[ 145 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


have intervened to extricate Chinese troops from 
their difficulties, or to secure a truce between the 
Tibetans and the Chinese. For years past, relations 
between the British and Tibetan governments have 
been most cordial; indeed, had Great Britain enter- 
tained the desire to do so, she could unquestionably 
have proclaimed a protectorate over Tibet without 
encountering any serious opposition from the gov- 
erning class. But her desire is to see Tibet preserve 
her autonomy under Chinese suzerainty, and the 
stumbling-block, hitherto, has been the definition 
of the Chinese-Tibetan frontier. The state of 
Szechwan and Yunnan, the Chinese provinces con- 
tiguous to Tibet, racked by successive civil wars 
during the past few years, has rendered it impos- 
sible for the Chinese government, even it 1f were 
willing, to enter into any agreement worth the 
paper it is written upon, in respect to Tibet. 

As long ago as December, 1922, the British gov- 
ernment notified the Chinese government of its 1n- 
tention to remit the balance of the British share 
of the Boxer indemnity, amounting to between 
twelve and fourteen million pounds sterling, in 
order that it might be devoted to purposes mutu- 
ally beneficial to China and Great Britain. The nec- 
essary legislation to fulfil this promise was passed 
a month or two ago, the money to be expended 


{ 146 ] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


on educational or other purposes, as decided by the 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who was to 
be advised by a Statutory Committee. Originally, 
the British communities in China were in favor of 
employing the entire amount for educational pur- 
poses, but the events of the past three years, the 
growing insubordination of the student class, and 
the hostility of Chinese educationalists to any form 
of foreign supervision or control have raised serious 
doubts as to the wisdom of earmarking so large a 
sum for educational ends. The British Chamber of 
Commerce in Tientsin early this year adopted a 
resolution which advocated reasonable support of 
educational institutions, and the expenditure of the 
balance on conservancy and flood-prevention meas- 
ures—which would insure the livelihood of many 
millions of Chinese who are periodically reduced to 
starvation by famine and floods—and, if conditions 
permit, upon railways and other means of com- 
munication so necessary for the development of the 
country. 

I may, I think, fairly sum up British policy in 
China today as aiming at the maintenance of the 
open door and equality of opportunity, the exten- 
sion of commercial and industrial facilities in 
China, the maintenance of existing treaty rights 
until such time as China proves her fitness to as- 


{ 147 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


sume greater administrative responsibilities, and 
peace on the Indian-Tibetan frontier. The British 
government willingly abandoned its former claim 
to a sphere of influence in the Yangtze Valley, and, 
to the best of my belief, there has been-no serious 
difference of opinion between the British and 
American governments as to the policy to be pur- 
sued in China for some years past. Great Britain 
was the first power to agree, conditionally, to the 
abolition of extraterritoriality and the revision of 
the customs-import tariff. 

Japanese political influence has been steadily 
increasing in China since the establishment of the 
republic, in spite of the bitter and persistent hostil- 
ity aroused by her aggressive action during the 
Great War period. Her actual or financial control 
of the South Manchuria, Antung-Mukden, Kirin- 
Changchun, and Ssupingkai-Taonan railways, to- 
gether with her occupation of the Liaotung penin- 
sula, gives her a dominating position in South 
Manchuria, won as a result of a costly war with 
Russia, and whatever assurances she may give re- 
garding her respect for Chinese territorial or ad- 
ministrative integrity she is unlikely for many 
years to come to relax her grip—political and eco- 
nomic—on this part of China. Soon after the out- 
break of the Great War, Japan’s assistance was 


{ 148 ] 


ee ee eee  — 


= Fe =e. 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


invoked by Great Britain, under the terms of the 
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, for the reduction of 
Tsingtao. This action of the British government 
has been severely criticized, even by some Britons 
in China, but was unavoidable. Tsingtao was a 
strongly fortified naval harbor, garrisoned by 
German troops, and though the larger German 
ships had left for the Southern Pacific before the 
outbreak of hostilities, it would, while war lasted, 
have constituted a constant menace to British and 
allied shipping in Northern Chinese waters. With 
what forces were available, Great Britain at- 
tempted a naval blockade of Tsingtao. She had 
only three or four batallions of infantry in North 
China and Hongkong, and no siege artillery nearer 
than India. 

Japan immediately sent an ultimatum to 
Germany demanding the surrender of Tsingtao, 
and followed it up by a naval blockade and the 
landing of a large expeditionary force, two British 
battalions participating to give the operations an 
allied character. Tsingtao was systematically re- 
duced, and then “for the purpose of fundamentally 
weakening the influence of Germany in the said 
region” —which had been recognized as a German 
sphere of influence—the Japanese advanced and 
occupied the Shantung Railway, which, with the 


[ 149 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


former German leased territory, remained in their 
possession until the end of 1922. The British forces 
in North China, with the exception of a single 
Indian battalion divided between Peking and 
Tientsin, were then withdrawn, and with Europe, 
and to a great extent America, also, preoccupied 
with the European war, Japan was left with a 
virtually free hand to do what she liked in China. 
She was not slow in moving. While the Chinese 
government was still protesting against the exten- 
sion of Japanese activities beyond the former 
German leased territory, the Japanese Minister, on 
January 18, 1915, secretly and menacingly present- 
ed President Yuan Shih-kai himself with a series of 
twenty-one demands, the acceptance of which, im 
toto, would have virtually converted China into a 
Japanese protectorate. Negotiations followed in 
which China stubbornly contested every demand, 
only yielding or compromising under extreme pres- 
sure, and on May 7, 1915, the Japanese govern- 
ment presented China with an ultimatum demand- 
ing compliance with all of her demands (except 
Group 5, which contained the most objectionable) 
within forty-eight hours. China had no option but 
to submit. She had to agree to recognize whatever 
disposition Japan might think fit to make of 
Germany’s interests in Shantung; to extend the 


[ 150 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


leases of the Liaotung peninsula, and of the South 
Manchuria and Antung-Mukden railways, for a 
further ninety-nine years; to give Japan special and 
extended privileges in South Manchuria and east- 
ern inner Mongolia; and to concede to Japan the 
exclusive right of financing the Hanyehping Cor- 
poration in the Yangtze Valley, thus giving her 
control of the bulk of China’s output of iron and 
iron ore. 

The original Liaotung lease was to Russia, for 
a period of twenty-five years, expiring in 1923, with 
provision for extension by mutual agreement. In 
1938, according to the Chinese Eastern Railway 
concessions agreement, China should have had the 
right to repurchase that railway from Russia, 
whose interests had been transferred—on the 
Dairen-Changchun sector—to Japan. No one fa- 
miliar with the situation can, I think, have im- 
agined that Japan would have restored the Liao- 
tung leased territory or sold back the South Man- 
churia Railway on the dates mentioned, and there 
is little doubt that the extension of these leases 
could have been secured in 1915, or later, by more 
tactful negotiation. Japan has since paid heavily 
for her bludgeoning of China in 1915, which has 
caused successive boycotts and embittered rela- 
tions between the two countries ever since. It is 


{ 151] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


noteworthy, as a side light on Chinese psychology, 
that the restoration of the former German leased 
territory and the Shantung Railway has in no way 
abated anti-Japanese feeling. On the contrary, it 
seems to have given the impression that it is only 
necessary for the Chinese to continue to agitate to 
extort anything they want from Japan. In spite of 
the clamor that arose over the restoration of the 
Shantung Railway, and the agitation for a national 
subscription to repurchase it direct from Japan, 
only a few hundred thousand of the forty million 
yen that will eventually be required for its redemp- 
tion have actually been raised. 

In the Yangtze Valley, Japan has substantial 
interests in two important enterprises—the Han- 
yang Ironworks, whose ouput she virtually con- 
trols, and the Kiangsi Railway, which has gone 
deeper and deeper in debt to Japanese financiers, as 
a result of incompetent management, and has been 
compelled to appoint a Japanese adviser and a 
Japanese superintending engineer in order to stave 
off insolvency. 

Japan has concessions at Amoy, Hankow, 
Chungking, Tientsin, Hangchow, and Soochow. 
Her nationals also have the right under the 1915 
treaties to lease land and engage in agricultural 
enterprises, and to reside, travel, and engage in 


{ 152 } 


ae a ai 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


business and manufacturing enterprises of every 
kind throughout south Manchuria. These rights 
should also accrue to other nationalities whose 
governments have signed treaties with China con- 
taining the “most favoured nations’’ clause. 

Japan has obtained a financial hold over China, 
and on many public undertakings, including “all 
the property and revenue of the telegraph lines 
throughout the Republic of China,” by means of 
the enormous loans concluded with the Peking gov- 
ernment during 1918, most of which are now in de- 
fault. These loans were concluded by Japanese 
financiers with the approval of the Japanese gov- 
ernment, which, it is understood, is about to make 
itself responsible for those that are in default. Rec- 
ognition of the so-called Nishihara loans, and ar- 
rangements to meet interest and amortization 
charges, are likely to cause considerable trouble in 
the near future, probably at the special Customs 
Conference. 

A Japanese firm has erected a high-power, long- 
distance wireless station in the vicinity of Peking, 
which, according to the terms of the original agree- 
ments, 1s to enjoy a monopoly of long-distance 
communication for a period of thirty years. This 
monopoly has been challenged by the British gov- 
ernment on the ground that it conflicts with prior 


[153 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


engagements entered into with the Marconi Com- 
pany, and by the American government, which 


supports the Federal Wireless Company, on the . 


ground that the Mitsui contract contravenes the 
treaty rights of American citizens in China and the 
principle of the open door. Chinese duplicity in en- 
tering into contracts, each of which conflicts with 
the terms of the other, is responsible for the friction 
that has arisen over the wireless question. 

The aggressive policy inaugurated by Japan in 
1915 has been abandoned—superficially, at any 
rate—during the past few years, and replaced by 
a more conciliatory attitude. There is little doubt, 
however, that Japan plays a more active part than 
any other power in China’s internal affairs. It was 
notorious that she was assisting Chang Tso-lin by 
every means in her power during the civil war of 
1924, the result of which was to restore the pro- 
Japanese Anfu leader, Tuan Chi-jui, to power. 
And I have it on the highest authority that on the 
eve of the collapse of the Chihli party a strong pro- 
test was addressed to the Chinese legations abroad, 
to be presented to the governments to which they 


were accredited, definitely charging Japan with — 


breaches of neutrality during the conflict. That it 
was not presented was due to the sudden change in 
the situation produced by the capture of Peking 


[154 } 





PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


and the control of the government by the Christian 
general.t At the moment Japan seems less inclined 
to assert her treaty rights than any other of the 
Great Powers, and allows incidents which a few 
years ago would have been followed by drastic de- 
mands for redress, coupled with a threat of military 
coercion, to pass with nothing more than a mild 
protest. America and Great Britain can no longer 
rely upon her sincere co-operation and support in 
the maintenance of treaty rights—a fact which I 
attribute to the abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese 
Alliance, as a result of the Washington Confer- 
ence, followed up by the passage of the new Ameri- 
can Immigration Law. One cannot avoid the con- 
viction that there is now an undercurrent of 
hostility to Anglo-Saxon interests on the part of 
Japanese officials in China. A year ago, when the 
Japanese government protested against the new 
immigration bill, I wrote: 

The very real danger of Japanese retaliation taking the 
form of refusal to co-operate with the other treaty powers in 
the protection of rights which they regard as vital at the pres- 
ent time has not, presumably, been reckoned with by Con- 


gress. The deliberate affront to Japanese susceptibilities of- 
fered by the passage of the new immigration bill in its present 


*The accuracy of the statements made in this and the preced- 
ing sentences of the paragraph was challenged after the lecture by 


L355 ] 


Count Soyeshima. 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


form, against the advice of the President and the Secretary 
of State, may have consequences far graver than a temporary 
outbreak of indignation in Japan. It may well imperil the 
position of all the white races in the East, and render nuga- 
tory the efforts of America and the powers who associated 
themselves with her at Washington, to “stabilize conditions in 
the Far East, to safeguard the rights and interests of China, 
and to promote intercourse between China and other powers 
upon the basis of equality of opportunity.” 

American interests in China are chiefly com- 
mercial, financial, and educational. Her political 
influence has been consistently exerted for the pur- 
pose of maintaining the integrity and independence 
of the Republic, and equal opportunity. Unlike 
other powers with substantial commercial inter- 
ests, America, as I have already stated, has no 
settlements or concessions in China. Those of us 
who live in the Far East, however, are tempted to 
retort to boasts upon this point that in the case of 
America it 1s not difficult to be virtuous as she en- 
joys to the full the advantages accruing to other 
peoples from the possession of such concessions. 
You do not in Shanghai, Tientsin, or Hankow find 
American business concerns showing their inde- 
pendence by seeking offices and residences outside 
the concessions or settlements, in Chinese territory. 
What was known as the American settlement in 
Shanghai was amalgamated with the British settle- 


{ 156 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


ment in 1863, to form the present international set- 
tlement, in which British interests still predomi- 
nate, but which on several previous occasions has 
had—and today has—an American as chairman of 
the Municipal Council. The strip of land in Tient- 
sin granted to the Americans as a concession has 
been incorporated for administrative purposes in 
the British municipal area, whose Council always 
contains at least one American. The American con- 
cession at Amoy was known by that name until 
1899, and is now embodied in the British con- 
cession. 

No existing railway in China has been con- 
structed or financed by Americans. Americans 
were the first to interest themselves in the project 
of constructing a railway between Peking and 
Hankow, but the contract eventually went to the 
Belgians. Americans also secured the concessions 
for the Canton-Hankow Railway, which, it was 
stipulated, must remain an American enterprise. 
But the bulk of the concessionaire’s stock was ac- 
quired in the open market, by Belgian interests, 
and after attempting to cancel the concession on 
the ground that there had been a violation of its 
terms, the Chinese government, in 1905, had to buy 
out the concessionaires for the exorbitant sum of 


$6,750,000. The Canton-Hankow Railway, there- 
[157] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


fore, has never yet been constructed. Under the 
terms of the Hukuang loan agreement, to which 
America was a party, the construction of the north- 
ern (Hupeh-Hunan) section of this railway is 
placed under British supervision. The southern 
(Kwangtung) section remains in the hands of a 
provincial company, which has been unable to com- 
plete its task. Funds being exhausted for the 
northern section, work is now at.a complete stand- 
still both in Hunan and Kwangtung; work has also 
been suspended on the American (Szechwan) sec- 
tion of the Hukuang railways. 

Railway contracts were signed with the Siems 
Carey Company in 1916 for the construction of 
fifteen hundred miles of railway in Hunan and 
Kwangsi, Honan and Hupeh, and Hupeh and 
Shansi, but have never been carried out, partly 
owing to opposition from other powers who claimed 
that these contracts violated pre-existing agree- 
ments, partly because of the difficulty of raising 
sufficient capital during the Great War. Americans 
also obtained contracts for the Hwai River and 
Grand Canal Conservancy works, which have also 
remained inoperative, and for the erection of one 
high-power, one medium, and four small wireless 
stations, construction of which has yet to be begun. 

America has taken the lead in educational work 


[ 158 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


in China, and her missions, and mission and edu- 
cational institutions, are the wealthiest and best 
equipped in China. The Rockefeller Institute in 
Peking not only furnishes opportunities for ad- 
vanced postgraduate work in medicine and surgery, 
but supports scientific investigations in many parts 
of China, and subsidizes many mission hospitals of 
high grade, including several union (Anglo-Ameri- 
can) institutions. Tsinghua College, near Peking, 
which is under the control of the Chinese Foreign 
Office, is supported from American indemnity 
funds, and staffed mainly with American teachers 
and professors. Its object is to prepare students 
for study in American colleges and universities. 
Some doubts have recently been expressed whether 
this institution and the scheme for sending Chinese 
to America to continue their studies have fulfilled 
expectations, and a very bad impression was cre- 
ated a few months ago by the issue and acceptance 
of an invitation to the soviet Ambassador to give 
a lecture at Tsinghua. He is reported to have re- 
ceived an enthusiastic welcome, and to have made 
a characteristic address inciting the students 
against Western “imperialism” and “oppression.” 

Other American educational institutions, nota- 
bly Yenching University at Peking, have also come 
in for considerable criticism of late, owing to the 


[ 159 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


participation of their students, apparently with the 
knowledge and at least tacit approval of the 
faculty, in anti-Japanese and other political dem- 
onstrations. Japanese papers in Peking alleged 
that the anti-Japanese and anti-government stu- 
dent demonstrations in Peking in May, 1925, were 
organized in the Peking Academy and participated 
in by students from Yenching University, the 
Y.M.C.A. School of Finance, and the Academy. 
And just before leaving Shanghai I saw a telegram 
from Peking stating that Yenching University, 
with the approval of the staff, and without await- 
ing reliable details of what had occurred in Shang- 
hai, had issued a manifesto deploring the action of 
the Shanghai municipal police. It might reason- 
ably have been expected that the riotous conduct of 
the students would also be deplored. It is only fair 
to add that other American educational institu- 
tions, notably Boone University at Wuchang, and 
St. John’s University at Shanghai, deservedly en- 
joy a high reputation for the maintenance of 
discipline among their students. 

American trade is rapidly increasing in China, 
and it is noteworthy that the percentage of Ameri- 
can shipping entering and leaving Chinese ports 
rose from 0.96 per cent in 1913 to 4.55 per cent in 


[ 160 | 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


1923, the tonnage under the American flag increas- 
ing more than sixfold during that period. 

No one, I think, doubts the sincerity of Ameri- 
ca’s desire to aid China during the troublous times 
through which she has been passing since 1911, but 
as an Englishman I feel that a great deal more 
might have been accomplished had America, Great 
Britain, and Japan made a firm and united stand 
on certain questions of vital interest to their na- 
tionals, such, for instance, as the registration of 
trade-marks and the progressive destruction of 
China’s railways by her militarists. 

French commercial interests are insignificant 
compared with those of Britain, Japan, and the 
United States; but her political interests are im- 
portant. Her Indo-China frontier is contiguous to 
the provinces of Yunnan and Kwangsi, and the 
Yunnan Railway, which is owned and operated by 
French interests, is the only rapid means of access 
to Yunnan. France has a lease of the port and 
about two hundred square miles of territory around 
Kwangchouwan, in Kwangtung province, which 
she expressed her willingness to restore to China 
only when all other powers holding leased terri- 
tories in China came into line. In addition to the 
Yunnan Railway, which is French owned, France 


{ 161 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


has financed and constructed, in whole or in part, 
the Peking-Hankow and the Shansi railways. She 
owns concessions in Shanghai, Canton, Hankow 
and Tientsin, in the administration of which the 
French Consul plays a larger rdéle than does his 
British colleague in the British concessions. France 
also has substantial financial interests in China, 
having participated in the Russo-French loan of 
four million francs floated in 1895, to pay off part 
of the Japanese indemnity, as well as in the Huku- 
ang and reorganization loans. A Frenchman is at 
the head of the Chinese postal service, which fact 
does infinite credit to his organizing capacity. The 
Chinese Government in 1898 undertook to con- 
sult the French Government regarding the selec- 
tion of the staff of the postal service, and the 
director-general has since always been a French- 
man. 

The outstanding issue between France and 
China for the past three years has been the gold- 
franc controversy. The Allied Powers, Russia ex- 
cepted, agreed, on China’s entry into the war, to 
the suspension for five years of China’s Boxer in- 
demnity payments. Before they had to be re- 
sumed, on December 1, 1922, a large French bank 
in the East, the Banque Industrielle de Chine, col- 
lapsed, and although it was not an official enter- 


{ 162 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


prise, the disaster had so serious an effect upon 
French credit in the Far East that the French 
legislature sanctioned a scheme by which the Boxer 
indemnity annuities would be utilized for the 
rehabilitation of the bank. This scheme, which in- 
volved resumption of indemnity payments in gold 
francs, and was devised in such a manner that the 
money would eventually be repaid to China for 
educational and other cultural purposes, was sub- 
mitted to, and approved by, successive Chinese 
ministers of foreign affairs, in July, 1922, and 
February, 1923. Subsequently, however, a political 
agitation was started in Peking, the contention be- 
ing put forward that the French indemnity was 
payable in paper francs, and not gold. It seems 
probable that the motive behind the agitation was 
blackmail, and the Chinese parliamentarians have 
for years past been on the lookout for bribes and 
subsidies. The Chinese government weakly repu- 
diated its undertaking, and the controversy re- 
mained unsettled until April, 1925. As a result of 
China’s attitude on this question, the French gov- 
ernment refused to recommend the ratification of 
the Nine-Power Customs Tariff Treaty of Wash- 
ington, without which the convening of the special 
conference therein provided for could not take 
place. The settlement in April provided for the re- 


{ 163 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


lease of the accumulated indemnity annuities for 
two years to the central government, whence, of 
course, most of it was filched by the militarists, and 
resumption of payment in gold dollars. France, 
just previous to the settlement, the details of which 
had been arranged, recognized that the gold-franc 
issue and the tariff question were not interrelated, 
and undertook to ratify the treaty at the earliest 
opportunity. 

Although a party to the arms-embargo agree- 
ment, under which the principal powers engaged to 
restrain their nationals from “exporting to, or im- 
porting into, China, arms and munitions of war, 
and material destined exclusively for their manu- 
facture,” France has been supplying Chang Tso- 
lin with quantities of aeroplanes, with machine- 
gun mountings, without any undertaking that 
they would not be used for warlike purposes, and a 
French mail steamer was actually diverted to 
Manchuria, after the outbreak of hostilities in 
1924, in order to deliver a large consignment of 
aeroplanes which the Manchurian war-lord had 
ordered. 

French policy in the Far East seems to me to be 
opportunist. France clings tenaciously to her 
rights—as evidenced by the gold-franc question, in 
which, by the way, she enlisted and obtained the 


[ 164 } 


Ee ——— se 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


support of the other treaty powers. But during the 
recent trouble in Shanghai the French cruiser in 
port was the only warship that did not land 
marines, the Consul, I understand, maintaining 
that French interests were not involved in the dis- 
turbances in the international settlement. 

France’s political influence has suffered to some 
extent by the abandonment of her réle of exclusive 
guardian of Roman Catholic interests in China, a 
role which was inconsistent with the anticlerical 
legislation of a few years ago. 

America, Britain, France, and Japan are com- 
mitted to the policy of supporting a financial con- 
sortium composed of representative banking in- 
stitutions of their respective nations, which aims, 
according to its published statements, at “the sub- 
stitution of international co-operation for inter- 
national competition, in the economic and financial 
affairs of China.” The consortium was re-estab- 
lished, on American initiative, in October, 1920, its 
activities being limited to 
existing and future loan agreements which involve the issue for 
subscription by the public of loans to the Chinese Govern- 
ment or to Chinese Government Departments, or to Provinces 
of China, or to companies or corporations owned or controlled 
by or on behalf of the Chinese Government, or any Chinese 
Provincial Government, or to any party if the transaction in 


{ 165 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


question is guaranteed by the Chinese Government or Chinese 
Provincial Government, but does not relate to agreements for 
loans to be floated in China. 

The Chinese government has never recognized nor 
had any official dealings with the consortium since 
its re-establishment, knowing full well that it 
would be impossible to raise loans for administra- 
tive purposes without foreign supervision over the 
expenditure and the security. The consortium, 
however, has fulfilled a useful purpose by prevent- 
ing the indiscriminate lending of money to China 
upon inadequate security, and with ulterior po- 
litical motives. 

The soviet government proposed the resump- 
tion of official relations in a telegraphic declaration 
dispatched in French from Irkutsk in July, 1919, in 
which it was stated: 


The Soviet Government returns to the Chinese people, 
without demanding any kind of compensation, the Chinese 
Eastern Railway, as well as all the mining concessions, 
forestry, gold mines, and all other things that were seized 
from them by the Government of the Tsars..... The Soviet 
Government gives up the indemnities payable by China for 
the insurrection of Boxers in 1900. 


This declaration was signed by Karahan, acting for 
the Commissary of Foreign Affairs, as also was 
another declaration dated September 27, 1920, 
which set forth in detail proposals for an agreement 


{ 166 | 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


with the Chinese Republic, which, however, re- 
served for a special treaty an agreement ‘‘on the 
way of working the Chinese Eastern Railway with 
due regard to the needs of the Russian Socialist 
Federated Soviet Republic.” A. A. Joffe, former 
soviet ambassador to Berlin, who was expelled for 
being implicated in the Spartacist rising, reached 
Harbin in August, 1922, as soviet envoy, but was 
unable to reach an agreement either with China or 
Japan, and was replaced by Karahan, who reached 
Peking in September, 1923. Dr. C. T. Wang was 
intrusted with the negotiations with the soviet 
envoy, and on March 14 an agreement was actu- 
ally initiated by the Russian and Chinese pleni- 
potentiaries, which was immediately repudiated by 
the Chinese Foreign Office chiefly because of dis- 
satisfaction with the clauses relating to outer 
Mongolia. Karahan attempted to enforce the 
formal signature of this agreement by a three days’ 
ultimatum, which the Chinese ignored. Negotia- 
tions were eventually resumed between Karahan 
and Dr. Wellington Koo, which resulted in the 
signature of an agreement and a number of 
declarations, providing for recognition of soviet 
Russia, the redemarcation of national boundaries, 
joint control of the Chinese Eastern Railway 
(which was not given back to China without de- 


{ 167 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


manding any kind of compensation), the relin- 
quishment of extraterritorial rights, and recogni- 
tion of outer Mongolia as “an integral part of the 
Republic of China,” it being left to future negotia- 
tions to arrange for the withdrawal of Russian 
troops from that territory. Declarations attached 
to the agreement made provision for the handing 
over to Russia of all former Russian government 
properties, and of the premises of the Russian 
orthodox mission in Peking, for the expenditure of 
the Russian share of the Boxer indemnity “‘for the 
promotion of education among the Chinese people, 
after the satisfaction of all prior obligations,” 
under the direction of a commission composed of 
two Chinese and one soviet representative, whose 
decisions must be unanimous; and for the dis- 
missal from Chinese government employment of 
“all the subjects of the former Russian Empire now 
employed in the Chinese army and police force.” 
When these documents were signed on May 31, 
1924, the Manchurian provinces were independent 
of the Peking government, whose authority they 
flatly refused to recognize, so that the provisions 
relating to the Chinese Eastern Railway could not 
be carried out. 

During the civil war in North China of the 
autumn of 1924, however, while mass meetings 


{ 168 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


were being staged in Moscow in support of a 
“Hands off China Movement,” at which the so- 
called “imperialistic powers” were the objects of 
soviet animosity, a separate agreement was signed 
at Mukden between a soviet representative and 
representatives of Chang Tso-lin, following in gen- 
eral terms the Peking agreement of May 31. At the 
time this agreement was signed, Chang Tso-lin was 
technically a rebel against the central government. 
He was induced to authorize its signature only by 
apprehension of soviet mischief in his rear while his 
armies were battling with the Chihli forces. This 
was the only overt act of interference in the civil 
war on the part of any foreign government. The 
members of the old Board of Directors of the Chin- 
ese Eastern Railway were immediately dismissed, 
and the general manager and chief of the land de- 
partment have been imprisoned ever since, on 
vague charges, to gratify soviet spite. 

A soon as China had recognized the Moscow 
government, the latter announced its intention of 
appointing Karahan its ambassador at Peking. No 
other power in Peking is represented by an envoy of 
higher rank than a minister. Protracted and some- 
what acrimonious negotiations and correspondence 
followed with reference to the restoration of the 
former Russian legation to the soviet envoy. It is 


[ 169 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


situated within the legation quarter, which is sur- 
rounded by fortified walls and a wide glacis, and it 
was difficult to see how a bolshevik ambassador, 
who made use of every opportunity to insult and 
denounce publicly the treaty powers, and who 
boasted that Russia had renounced all privileges 
acquired by her under the tsarist régime, could be a 
desirable neighbor. Karahan maintained, however, 
that in the Sino-Russian agreement of May 31, 
1924, Russia had not actually renounced, but had 
agreed to annul, at a conference to be held later, 
the so-called “‘tsarist treaties,’ and that Russia, 
therefore, was still entitled to the rights and privi- 
leges enjoyed by the treaty powers asa result of the 
Boxer protocol. At an informal conversation with 
the American Minister, Karahan is said to have 
given assurances of his intention to act as a good 
neighbor, and an undertaking not to bring Red 
troops into the quarter. The legation property was 
subsequently handed over to the bolshevik Am- 
bassador, who has had its gates painted a brilliant 
red, and hoisted the Red flag in place of the old 
Russian flag. Hardly a week has passed since the 
signature of the Sinq-Russian agreement in May, 
1924, that Karahan has not addressed prolix pro- 
tests to the Chinese Foreign Office or the treaty 
powers, on matters ranging from the use of the 


[ 170 } 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


glacis fronting the Russian legation, for “‘horse- 
jumping” by American marines, to the employ- 
ment of White Russians in Chang Tso-lin’s army, 
and the refusal of the Manchurian authorities to 
sanction the wholesale dismissal of non-soviet em- 
ployees on the Chinese Eastern Railway. He has, 
moreover, frequently entertained, or been enter- 
tained, by Chinese politicians, educationalists, and 
students, whom he has openly incited to a “‘bloody 
struggle for national freedom and liberation from 
imperialism.” 

A soviet agent was attached to the Canton gov- 
ernment, even when the latter was in open revolt 
against Peking, and soviet military instructors have 
been placed at the disposal of the Canton authori- 
ties for the instruction of their military cadets. 

Thus Russia has not actually given up any 
privileges which had not previously been taken 
away from her, and she has reacquired control of 
the Chinese Eastern Railway. I have not the time 
here to dwell in detail upon soviet activities in 
China, but I may sum up Russian policy during 
the past year as having been concentrated upon 
fomenting anti-foreign feeling among the Chinese, 
and encouraging them to resist every attempt on 
the part of the treaty powers to assert their treaty 
rights. 


{ 171 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


I have dealt with the interests of the powers 
which have the most substantial commercial and 
political interests in China, and I need not say very 
much about the others. Belgium has extensive 
railway and mining interests. The Dutch are co- 
operating with the Belgians on the coast section of 
the Lunghai Railway. Italy’s commercial interests 
are unimportant, but she has a concession in Tient- 
sin, and has recently sent out a contingent of 
Italian marines for garrison duty in North China. 
Spain’s interests are also unimportant, and her 
diplomatic and consular officials during the past 
thirteen years have probably done more than those 
of any other power to bring extraterritoriality and 
foreign prestige into disrepute. There are over 
three thousand Portuguese in China, most of whom 
are employed in subordinate clerical positions. 
Portugal, however, owns the colony of Macao, 
which may be described as the plague-spot of the 
East. Its commerce is of no account, and the gov- 
ernment is supported almost entirely by opium and 
gaming revenues. 

We may sum up the situation at the moment, 
then, by saying that British and American inter- 
ests in China are in the main identical, both seek- 
ing, above all, to secure stable conditions for the 
development of their commerce; that Japan’s real 


{ 172] 


PROBLEMS OF PRESENT-DAY CHINA 


interests should lie in the same direction, but that 
while vacillating between an aggressive and a con- 
ciliatory policy, she interferes to a greater extent 
than any of the other powers in China’s internal 
affairs, though, as a rule, secretly, and with the 
result—if not the intent—of perpetuating internal 
dissensions; and that soviet Russia is bending all 
her efforts to creating hostility between China and 
the treaty powers, and dissensions among the 
latter, and is finding favorable soil for her poison- 
ous activities in the discontents produced by 
thirteen years of misrule under the so-called 


Chinese Republic. 


{ 173 } 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


By JuLteEAN ARNOLD 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


China’s geographical isolation, her unique civ- 
ilization, her disregard of the civilizations of other 
peoples, and the overpowering, all-pervading re- 
spect of the intellect of the nation for the teachings 
of the ancient sages found the country at the begin- 
nings of the twentieth century economically still a 
medieval civilization, although possessed of a rich 
heritage in a culture which has filtered down 
through the masses, the resultant of the millen- 
niums of its national life. The developments fol- 
lowing the application of steam and electricity to 
the industrial life of the peoples of the Occident 
only began to make their influence felt in China 
during the latter half of the nineteenth century. 

Topographically, China and the United States 
are very similar. Each is a country of vast con- 
tinental proportions. The great Yangtze Valley of 
China may be compared to the Mississippi Valley 
of the United States. Without railways the popu- 
lation of the United States at the end of the nine- 
teenth century would have been grouped about the 
seacoasts and waterways accessible thereto. The 


Mississippi Valley would probably have been set- 
[177] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


tled from New Orleans up. There would have been 
a situation somewhat comparable to that of China. 
In other words, the great land areas out of touch 
with water communications would have remained 
unsettled and undeveloped. 

Although China is larger in area than Europe, 
or the United States including Alaska, yet six- 
sevenths of China’s population is concentrated in 
one-third of its area. It is a mistaken idea to speak 
of China as overpopulated. There is in the lower 
Yangtze Valley, that is, in the Yangtze Delta 
region, an estimated population of forty million 
people in an area of fifty thousand square miles, or 
that similar to the state of Illinois. Mongolia, with 
an area equivalent to about one-and-a-half times 
that of the states east of the Mississippi, has a 
population of about two million, or less than two 
to the square mile. There are other regions of the 
Chinese Republic, comprising hundreds of thou- 
sands of square miles, more sparsely populated 
than any state in the American Union, due pri- 
marily to lack of economic transportation. There 
are also provinces in China which are cut away 
economically from the rest of the country, and 
which enjoy only a minimum of commercial inter- 
course. So-called West China, with an estimated 
population of one hundred million, is out of eco- 


{ 178 ] 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


nomic communication with the rest of China, hence 
with the outside world, because of lack of railways. 
Much of the transportation in this section of West 
China is on the backs of human beings. If the cargo 
carried in one year by the railways for the one 
hundred million people of the United States had to 
be placed on the backs of human beings, it would 
require eight hundred million men working 365 
days out of the year, each carrying a load of 150 
pounds over an average of fifteen miles a day, to 
equal it. This indicates, in an impressive way, the 
significance of the lack of economic transportation 
to those regions in China out of touch with water- 
ways. Furthermore, transportation in these sec- 
tions is about ten times as expensive as railway 
transportation in the United States, although un- 
skilled labor receives there not more than the equiv- 
alent of about twelve cents gold a day. To get the 
wheat from the rich Wei Basin in southern Shensi, 
where it can be purchased at one-third the price in 
America, to the Peking-Hankow Railway, about 
five hundred miles distant, increases the price to 
such a degree as to make it cheaper to purchase 
wheat in America and transport it to the milling 
centers of China. 

Within the past few years, the Governor of the 
Shans province has constructed nearly a thousand 


{179 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


miles of good roads in the so-called “model prov- 
ince.” This was done with the idea of encouraging 
motor transportation. There are, however, in the 
ageregate, no more than seventy-five motor vehi- 
cles in the whole of the Shansi province, which has 
a population of about ten million, in an area similar 
to that of the state of Kansas. Transportation by 
pack animals and carts in Shansi averages about 
sixteen cents in Chinese silver, a ton-mile. Motor 
transportation runs from twenty to twenty-five 
cents a ton-mile, whereas railways should be able 
to carry cargo at less than three cents a ton-mile. 
Shansi needs a trunk-line railway from north to 
south, and good roads might then well serve as 
feeders. Without railways, the most enlightened 
government in that province will not make for sub- 
stantial prosperity. Railways in China, operated 
under reasonably efficient management, are poten- 
tial gold mines, as the populations have preceded 
the railway in many sections not yet provided with 
railways. They can be operated at a cost of less 
than 50 per cent on their operating revenues. The 
Chinese coolie daily wage can purchase one ton- 
kilometer coolie transportation or twenty tons- 
kilometer railway transportation, as compared 
with the American common laborer’s wage which 
can purchase two hundred tons-kilometer railway 


[ 180 ] 


CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


transportation—ten times the purchasing power 
of the Chinese wage-earner in railway transporta- 
tion, or two hundred times that of the coolie 
carrier. 

Bad internal communications in China have en- 
couraged provincialism. This has been accentu- 
ated through the perpetuation over many cen- 
turies of the family system, interwoven with which 
is ancestor worship. A laissez faire governmental 
policy left the people to their own devices with a 
minimum of pressure from above. However, to 
safeguard against the redevelopment of a feudal 
system which characterized China prior to the be- 
ginnings of the Christian Era, the civil-service ex- 
aminations carried with them the stipulation that 
the native of any province should not hold official 
position in that province. These civil-service ex- 
aminations, perpetuated for a period of over one 
thousand years, also acted as a reinforcing agency, 
holding Chinese society together, with common 
ideals and aspirations. On the other hand, each 
community developed its own interpretation of 
many of the nation’s institutions, as, for instance, 
the country’s weights and measures and currency 
units. Often distinct dialects differentiated a com- 
munity from its neighbors, although through the 
civil-service examinations a common written lan- 


{ 181 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


guage, a common literature, and common educa- 
tional ideals were perpetuated among an aristoc- 
racy of learning. This overpowering respect for 
the teachings of the sages, which marked Chinese 
society up to the beginnings of the twentieth cen- 
tury, encouraged individualism but discouraged 
initiative, scientific research, and invention, as evi- 
denced by the fact that the country has not as yet 
developed a patent office. It produced a stereo- 
typed, self-sufficient society. Although this society 
has been for upward of two thousand years dis- 
tinctly democratic, yet education has been for the 
favored few. Economic conditions were not such 
as to encourage but a very small fraction of the 
population in seeking an education. Thus, while 
the civil-service examination acted as a safety- 
valve for the ambition of the nation, yet under it 
the percentage of illiteracy among the masses was 
appalling. Nor did it result in the development of 
a system of public schools, for under it instruction 
was individual. That great agency in a modern 
democratic society for the encouragement of a 
spirit of group activity, the public school, is of 
recent growth in China. 

China is essentially agricultural, with probably 
80 per cent of the people engaged in rural pursuits. 
Although from time immemorial agriculture has 


{ 182 | 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


been honored and assigned a position next after 
learning in Chinese society, yet one sees but little 
evidence of improvements in agricultural processes 
over many centuries. This is demonstrated by the 
fact that four-fifths of the population 1s engaged in 
providing the sustenance for the nation. In the 
United States less than 40 per cent of the people 
comprise the agricultural population, yet live bet- 
ter and produce a proportionately greater surplus 
for export than do the people of China. Irrigation, 
afforestation, deep plowing, scientific seed selec- 
tion, rural credits, effective marketing, and animal 
husbandry are subjects which have received but 
little attention on the part of the government or 
through organized effort in any other direction. 
Agriculturally, China suffers badly through poor 
and inadequate irrigation, through deforestation, 
through lack of a knowledge of proper plowing 
methods, through little attention to seed selection, 
through usurous practices in financing the farming 
class, through a bad and uneconomic marketing 
system, through poor internal communications, 
and, in general, through lack of co-operative effort 
and the application of science to productive indus- 
try, in spite of the highly developed industrious and 
thrifty personal traits of character of the people. 
In a similar way, China was found at the begin- 


{ 183 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ning of the twentieth century to be far behind the 
Occident in industrial and commercial develop- 
ments. The individual business rather than the 
corporate enterprise, and the domestic handicraft 
industry rather than organized manufacturing with 
modern machinery, characterized the old China. 
In an article on “Manpower plus Horsepower,” 
George Otis Smith, director, United States Geo- 
logical Survey, made the statement: 

Edward Everett Hale charted the course of industrial 
development when he said that the extent to which the world 
had changed the laborer who uses his body into the workman 
who uses his head was the index of civilization. The true 
measure of industrial progress is found in the amount of me- 
chanical power used to supplement manpower. 


Mr. Smith calculates that the motor-power we are 
now using, steam and electricity, gives us the 
equivalent of five energy servants for every man, 
woman, and child in the United States, which in it- 
self 1s equivalent to giving us industrially the 
effectiveness of five hundred millions of people 
working without this power. This statement can 
be appreciated in a country like China, where there 
has not yet been developed one horse-power of its 
wonderful potentialities in hydroelectric power, 
and where steam-power is only at the threshold of 
its possibilities in modern industry. 


{ 184 } 


CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


It is only during the past fifty years that the 
Chinese people have come to realize the backward- 
ness of their country in a modern economic sense. 
It was about fifty years ago that the first group of 
Chinese students was sent abroad to imbibe 
Western learning. That this movement had not the 
sympathy of the nation at that time is demonstra- 
ted by the fact that these students were recalled be- 
fore they were able to complete their education. It 
was a number of years after their return to China 
before they were reinstated in positions of honor 
and respect and permitted to utilize their training 
abroad for the benefit of their people. 

The shock to the nation came in 1894 with their 
defeat in a war against the Japanese, a people 
whom they had always considered inferior to them- 
selves. It was only then that the Chinese realized 
the efficacy of Western methods, as the Japanese 
had gone much farther in the utilization of ideas 
from the West than had the Chinese. The Emper- 
or, to make amends, rushed headlong into an 
elaborate program of reform, and issued the most 
sweeping edicts, calling for drastic changes. With 
the Boxer troubles in 1900, there were evidences of 
reactionary forces again in control. During the 
early years of the twentieth century, feverish 
efforts were made by the Manchu dynasty to save 


{185 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


itself from the possible consequences of a revolu- 
tionary spirit rapidly developing among the think- 
ing people of the country. Drastic reforms were in- 
troduced. Among the more important of these 
were the abolition, in 1905, of the ancient classics as 
the test in the civil-service examinations and the 
substitution therefor of subjects of Western learn- 
ing, the appointment of constitutional commissions 
to proceed abroad to study foreign forms of govern- 
ment, the establishment of modern schools in 
China, and provisions for the institution of a con- 
stitutional form of government. Young China be- 
came, however, unduly impatient, and demanded 
more than was physically possible to accomplish. 
Thus, with the revolution of 1911, the Manchu 
dynasty was swept out of power and the republican 
form of government inaugurated. 

Thousands of Chinese students have, during the 
past two decades, matriculated in Western uni- 
versities, imbued with the idea of making China 
over along modern lines. It is only within the past 
few years that it has been discovered that the task 
is too stupendous and that no hasty progress in 
connection with the establishment of a new eco- 
nomic order in China may be expected. As a re- 
sult, to some a keen sense of diSappointment over 
the efficacy of Western ideas is manifest. This has 


| 186 } 


CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


brought about a reaction. There are those who 
place the blame of the failures in these experiments 
in Westernization upon the foreign institutions, 
and advocate a reversion to the old order. The 
better balanced among the intellectuals, however, 
appreciate the fact that there has been much of the 
superficial in Western learning as acquired by 
many of those who journeyed abroad with the 
mistaken idea that this learning would in itself 
serve as a panacea for China’s ills. There is now a 
substantial realization on the part of these better- 
informed persons of the necessity of adjusting what 
modern science and Western learning have to offer, 
to meet the peculiar needs of the Chinese environ- 
ment. 

China was not prepared for the drastic change 
which came with the overthrow of a monarchy of 
several thousand years and the sudden inaugura- 
tion of a republican form of government. Under 
the old order the family system had been accentu- 
ated to such a degree that the individual was 
trained to a deep and keen sense of responsibility in 
his relations to the family or clan, but with little 
or no appreciation of a responsibility to the larger 
unit, the community, or the nation. Thus public 
opinion, so essential to the success of a representa- 
tive form of government, had not been developed 


[ 187 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


under the monarchy. What protection the indi- 
vidual required in his relations to society was se- 
cured through his affiliations with his clan and with 
his trade, craft, or provincial guilds. Custom and 
tradition carried more weight than law. The lawyer 
was unknown in Chinese society prior to the begin- 
nings of the twentieth century. A man’s relations 
to his fellow-men were those based upon equity 
rather than upon legal definition. On the whole, so- 


ciety was very loosely knit, so far as its relations to- 


the larger unit, the central government, was con- 
cerned. So long as China remained isolated, this 
condition of affairs might have continued, as there 
were apparently no reasons from within for a 
change, but the inevitable contact with the civiliza- 
tions of other peoples altered the entire situation. 

With the inauguration of the republic, there 
has been a tendency to scrap the institutions of the 
old China in a wholesale way irrespective of rela- 
tive values, and to take on occidental institutions 
in form rather than in essence. For instance, the 
ideas of corporate business as taken from the West 
will no more succeed in China without an accom- 
panying sense of the responsibility of trusteeship 
than they will elsewhere. Potentially, the Chinese 
possess the qualities necessary to the success of 
corporate enterprise. This has already been dem- 


{ 188 } 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


onstrated by a number of successful organizations 
of this character, but before corporate business can 
be developed in a large way among the Chinese 
mercantile communities, it becomes necessary to 
institute a body of law and courts competent to 
administer the law, and to build a solid founda- 
tion for the new order. 

During the past decade, the Chinese have 
organized numerous manufacturing companies of a 
corporate nature. Under the extraordinary condi- 
tions resulting from the European war, huge profits 
were made, but, unfortunately, these were paid out 
in dividends without the building up of reserves or 
provisions for depreciation and maintenance. Con- 
sequently, with the leaner years following the 
termination of the war, many of these companies 
suffered financial embarrassments for lack of liquid 
capital. Furthermore, stockholders have often 
been at the mercy of promoters or rapacious 
officials. However, experience is educating the 
Chinese business man to an appreciation of the 
necessity of providing capital reserve in corporate 
enterprise and of safeguarding his investments 
against abuses, with the result that there has been 
a very noticeable slackening in modern industrial 
enterprise in the country. The family system, 
which was admirably adapted to the old order be- 


[ 189 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


fore the introduction of modern machinery and the 
application of the principles of modern science, 
handicaps in many ways the building up of trade 
and industry on modern lines. The responsibility 
of a successful member in a family for all his rela- 
tives is disastrous to the pay-roll of a corporate 
institution of which the successful member is a 
director. The institution known in China as face, 
which is so strongly identified with the family sys- 
tem, militates seriously against young men start- 
ing at the bottom of the ladder and working their 
way up. Students trained in engineering in the 
West return to China reluctant to participate in 
anything flavoring of manual labor. Face stands in 
the way. The trade and craft guilds’ apprentice 
system also adds to the difficulties of young men of 
education launching upon a career in business or 
industrial establishments. Gradually these handi- 
caps to the successful institution of a modern eco- 
nomic order will disappear, but for many years after 
they will have disappeared in form, the essence will 
continue in evidence. An analogous situation exists 
in Japan, where in form feudalism has disappeared, 
but in essence it continues to embarrass industry 
and trade. 

The greatest handicap to the rapid institution 
of a successful modern economic society in China 


[ 190 } 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


is the disintegration of the central-government au- 
thority. Following the dissolution of the mon- 
archy, numerous individuals working through the 
control of military organizations have set them- 
selves up in various parts of the country as semi- 
independent rulers with the result that we now 
have in China over a million men under arms serv- 
ing various leaders, each pitted against the others 
in efforts to strengthen his own political position. 
The economic conditions in the country generally 
have encouraged individuals joining the standards 
of these semi-independent leaders as according 
them a better means of livelihood than struggling 
to eke out an existence otherwise. Thus soldiering 
in China seems to be a matter of necessity rather 
than of choice. In other words, with improved eco- 
nomic conditions, particularly improved internal 
communications, the temptation to leave the pro- 
ductive employments for employment in brigand 
armies will be less in evidence. Thus whatever may 
be done to improve the economic conditions in the 
country generally would assist in hastening the 
development of a stronger central government. 

A distinctly promising aspect of the situation 1s 
the sense of nationalism which 1s growing, particu- 
larly among the business men, bankers, and the 
students of the country. This, together with the 


{ 191 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


receptivity of the people generally to modern ideas, 
promises much for the future. The Chinese are 
essentially an industrious people. They possess 
good ethical and educational ideals. They are nat- 
ural traders and show ability in the handling of 
machinery and the instruments of modern indus- 
try. In foreign countries, where they have worked 
under favorable political and economic conditions, 
they exhibit remarkable ability. The problems con- 
fronting the country today are stupendous. The 
transition from a medieval civilization to that of a 
modern social and economic order for a people pos- 
sessing one-quarter of the world’s population and 
an area greater than that of the United States or 
Europe must of necessity be attended with friction 
and involve the time element, especially so as the 
evolution is one from the bottom up rather than 
from the top down. The forces that work beneath 
the surface are, however, of such a nature that we 
may expect a fairly successful consummation of 
this transition during the next few decades. 
Nothing better exemplifies China’s backward- 
ness in a modern economic sense than her per 
capita consumption of iron and steel, which is one- 
one hundred and eightieth of that of the United 
States, one-one hundredth of that of England or 
Germany, one-tenth of that of Japan, and one- 


[ 192 ] 





CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


thirtieth of the average per capita consumption of 
the world generally. The country possesses the best 
coal and iron resources of any Pacific region, but 
very little by way of development has yet taken 
place in these two industries which constitute the 
backbone of a modern industrial society. China has 
14 blast furnaces with a maximum capacity of 
850,000 tons annually but which produced in 1923 
about 300,000 tons. The United States has 450 fur- 
naces, which in 1922 produced 27,000,000 tons of 
pig. As for coal, China produces about 25,000,000 
tons annually and the United States 500,000,000 
tons. China has but 7,000 miles of railways com- 
pared with America’s 265,000 miles. In motor ve- 
hicles China should have, proportionate to her 
population and territory, four times as many as 
the United States, which would mean 50,000,000. 
Instead there are but 10,000 in use in the country. 
The United States can boast of 10,000,000 tele- 
phones in use throughout the country, compared 
with about 100,000 in use in China. Of surfaced 
motor roads, the United States has about 300,000 
miles and a total of total of 2,500,000 miles of rural 
roads. In China, surfaced roads are confined at 
best to a very few cities, with probably an aggre- 
gate of less than 1,000 miles, and so called “good 
roads” about 8,000 miles. In modern manufactur- 


{ 193 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ing industries, the United States has 7,000,000 
employees compared with less than 500,000 in 
China. The United States annually produces 17,- 
000,000,000 kilowatt-hour units of electric power 
by the utilization of her water-power resources. 
China, which is equally rich in water-power re- 
sources, has as yet done practically nothing to avail 
herself of her resources. In cotton spindles, which 
represent the most extensively developed modern 
industry in China, the country boasts of 3,000,000 
compared with 37,000,000 in America, yet China is 
the third in importance as a cotton-growing coun- 
try. It represents the largest market in the world 
for cotton yarn and cotton goods, and has cheaper 
labor for cotton manufacture than any other coun- 
try. 

These figures indicate clearly the backwardness 
of the country in a modern economic sense, and at 
the same time serve to convey to the mind of the 
American reader, who resides in a country very 
similar in topography to that of China, the enor- 
mous potentialities of the Chinese Republic as a 
modern economic society. 

Among Western observers there are those who 
would discourage China’s rise as a modern eco- 
nomic and political society, fearing the competition 
of the four hundred million industrious Chinese, 


[ 194 } 


CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


when armed with the implements of modern sci- 
ence. A weak, undeveloped China 1s a far greater 
menace to the world than would be a strong, well- 
ordered, well-nourished population, especially one 
possessing the rich background of culture that 
characterizes the Chinese people. As shown above, 
China is not land poor. Furthermore, Asia prob- 
ably possesses more undeveloped and unsettled 
territory than does any other continent. The West 
need only fear a yellow peril so long as the economic 
level of China remains below that of the Occident. 
Through the development of China and Asia’s 
great treasure-houses of natural resources, the eco- 
nomic level of the Chinese people will be elevated 
to that approaching America’s, with a correspond- 
ing advance in the earning and purchasing powers 
of the individual. Thus it is to the interest of the 
American people to assist in every possible way in 
the improvement of the economic condition of the 
Chinese people. 

It is a noteworthy fact that America has been 
and continues to be the largest contributor, both in 
funds and in personnel, to philanthropic work in 
China. It is estimated that the American contribu- 
tions, which probably amount to ten million dol- 
lars gold a year, and the American missionary 
population of six thousand, who handle these funds 


[ 195 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


in China, represent more than the aggregate of the 
funds and facilities furnished by all other peoples. 
In addition to these regular contributions, special 
contributions are made from time to time. For in- 
stance, a few years ago seven million dollars gold 
were expended upon the installation of the Rocke- 
feller Foundation Medical School in Peking, and a 
year later seven million and five hundred thou- 
sand dollars were raised in the United States for 
famine relief in North China. It is unfortunate 
that the modern educational institutions in China, 
including the many mission schools, have not 
adapted their curricula in a more practical way to 
the present-day needs of the Chinese environment. 
There is entirely too much of a tendency to sub- 
stitute the academic training of the West for the 
former Chinese academic curriculum. 

There was probably never a time in Chinese 
history when the country was so sadly in need of 
men trained to appreciate the significance of 
China’s great outstanding economic needs and to 
devise ways and means of correcting this situation 
than there is today. It is a sad comment upon the 
intellect of the nation, possessing as she does a 
marvelous wealth in man-power and material re- 
sources, that it continues to be necessary to put out 
periodically calls to the outside world for famine 


[ 196 } 








CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESOURCES 


relief. Far too many men are being graduated with 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts whose training fits 
them for little more than the ability to pass down 
to others that which they have acquired.. China is 
suffering from tremendous economic ills, and the 
brains and brawn of the country should be mobil- 
ized in efforts to correct these. The Chinese people 
would also do well to encourage the investments of 
foreign capital in the development of the natural 
resources of their country. There is no need of 
jeopardizing the future political status of China, 
through foreign-capital investments, any more 
than has America’s political status been injured 
through the large sums of British capital which 
in decades gone by played so prominent a part in 
the development of the natural resources of the 
United States. America now possesses a surplus 
of capital which could, under proper safeguards, 
be invested in productive enterprises in China ina 
manner helpful to the correction of China’s great 
economic ills and thereby assist China and the 
world generally. 


[ 197 } 





ih ae afi 


oy MMA Eg 
nit i PL a a Weak if | aie rinks 


PEP US STANSVENe THERA RY BAST 


By Henry Kirrrepce Norron 





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y a 


pte Wy 
we! 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


In the middle of the sixteenth century, about 
the time the Spaniards were beginning to garner 
the golden harvest of the New World and to send 
their people out into its wildernesses to establish 
there the power and the civilization of Spain, there 
was a similar urge toward riches and territory in 
the opposite corner of Europe. 

The growing power of the rulers of Muscovy 
had been bruited abroad, and inspired their nearer 
neighbors and even more distant ones with concern 
for their safety. Some prepared for war; others sent 
to Moscow rich gifts, which the Russian rulers con- 
sidered as tribute. 

Even beyond the Urals, the high mountain wall 
which marks the eastern boundary of Europe, had 
spread the fame of Russian prowess, and the Tartar 
prince of this region, Kutshum Khan, sought to 
secure the friendship of the Tsars by sending to 
Moscow long trains of the finest furs. Furs in 
Russia were as good as gold in Spain, and if the 
Khan’s gift excited feelings of gratitude in the 
palace, it excited cupidity elsewhere. When Yer- 
mak, an outlawed bandit chieftain, heard of this 


{ 201 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


princely gift, he determined to cross the Ural wall 
and try his fortune in the lands beyond. In 1580, 
with less than two thousand men, he set forth. He 
soon made himself master of Kutshum’s country, 
including his capital, which was known as Sibir. 
Yermak called the country Siberia, and offered it 
to the Tsar in exchange for his pardon. 

The bargain was struck, and Russia found her- 
self facing a new world across the Urals, with its 
lure of conquest, riches, and death, as surely as 
Spain was facing a new world across the Atlantic. 
And the Russians were no less eager than the Span- 
iards to enter and explore. They swarmed across 
the mountain wall and advanced steadily east- 
ward. Cossacks were in the van; herdsmen and 
farmers followed. 

From river valley to river valley they moved, 
founding towns as they went. By 1651 they had 
reached Lake Baikal and founded Irkutsk. Thus 
far they had met no serious resistance, but east of 
Baikal they were opposed by the Buriats, a power- 
ful tribe of the Mongol race that had produced a 
Genghis Khan and a Tamerlane. It took the Cos- 
sacks four years of hard fighting to subdue these 
doughty plainsmen. But in the north the advance 
had been more rapid, and other Cossack bands had 
reached the sea of Okhotsk as early as 1636. The 


{ 202 | 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


territory along the Amur from Baikal to the Pacific 
was still unknown. 

In 1649 the governor of Yakutsk granted the 
request of the Cossack chieftain, Habarov, that he 
be allowed to enter this country in search of a short 
route to the Amur. Habarov started with about 
seventy men. Violating the governor’s instructions 
that the natives should be treated with considera- 
tion, Habarov left behind him a wide trail of 
burned villages, murdered men, and tortured 
women. The outraged natives turned upon him, 
and he was obliged to return for reinforcements. 
With a larger force he was able to defeat the natives 
and establish a fortified post at Albazin on the 
Amur River. 

Here the Russians first came into contact with 
the Chinese. China had never occupied the coun- 
try north of the Amur, but the governor of Man- 
churia collected an annual tribute in furs for the 
emperor of China. Habarov, flushed with success, 
dispatched an embassy to the governor to demand 
a tribute “as great as he could give,” and at the 
same time asked his own superiors for an army to 
conquer, not only the Amur country, but Man- 
churia as well. His embassy was massacred by the 
natives, and his request for an army was ignored, 
so Habarov continued his murderous course down 


{ 203 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the river to its junction with the Ussuri, where the 
city of Habarovsk now stands. Here he fought off 
one Manchu army, and slipping around another, 
fixed his camp on the site of the modern Blago- 
veshchensk. 

Quarrels with his men and with his superiors 
resulted in Habarov’s recall, and without his grim 
leadership, the Russians had to resist the deter- 
mined efforts of the Chinese to rid the country of 
their presence. “They were driven out and Albazin 
destroyed in 1658. But seven years later it was re- 
established, and by 1674 had become a large post. 
The Chinese emperor, Kang Hsi, renewed the 
struggle, and in 1685 again destroyed the settle- 
ment. No sooner had his troops left, however, than 
the Russians were back rebuilding the fortifications 
once more. 

While Cossack indomitability was winning over 
Chinese military effort on the Amur, Russian state- 
craft was losing to Chinese diplomacy at Nert- 
chinsk. By a treaty signed in 1689, China’s first 
treaty with a Western power, Russia agreed to 
withdraw from the Amur and recognize the river 
Gorbitza (Argun?) as the boundary between the 
two empires. 

For over one hundred and fifty years Russia 
contented herself with what she had gained, and 


[ 204 ] 





THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


made no effort to extend her possessions in the Far 
East. In 1846, Tsar Nicholas I, disturbed by the 
increasing interest of Great Britain in China, sent 
an expedition to explore the mouth of the Amur. 
The following year he sent out Nicolai Muraviev 
as governor-general of Siberia. Muraviev was of 
the breed of empire-builders. He resolved to con- 
trol the Amur at all costs. The Tsar supported 
him, and settlements were made at Nikolatevsk, 
DeCastries Bay, and Alexandrovsk. This was fol- 
lowed by the occupation of Saghalien. Muraviev 
not only organized armies and colonizing expedi- 
tions, but he won over the natives by fair treat- 
ment. 

Thus it was that when the Crimean War 
temporarily wrecked the power of Russia in 
Europe, the Siberian Governor-General was able 
to continue with his plans in the Far East. In 1854 
he started down the Amur with one steamship and 
seventy-five barges. This expedition enabled him 
to hold Nikolaievsk against the French and English 
so that Russia lost no ground in the Far East in 
the war. Other expeditions followed. The Chinese 
protested and Muraviev invited them to a confer- 
ence, at which he assured them that he wanted 
nothing but peace, but he was going to establish a 
string of forts along the left bank of the Amur. 


[ 205 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


The Governor-General proceeded with his 
plans, and the Chinese continued with their pro- 
tests. Peking was too busy at the time warding off 
English and French aggression to do other than 
protest, however, and in 1858 agreed with Mura- 
viev, in a treaty signed at Aigun, that the 
Amur should be the boundary between the two 
empires as far as the Ussuri. Beyond that it was 
to be determined by later agreement. Russians and 
Chinese were to share the navigation of the river, 
and trade was to be free across the new boundary. 
The Chinese took a leaf from their experiences with 
the Treaty of Nanking, and provided that Chinese 
on the left bank should remain under Chinese 
jurisdiction. 

There was great rejoicing among the Russians. 
Muraviev was made a count with the title of 
“Amurski,” by a grateful Tsar. Holy Russia had 
not only reached the Amur, but had done so with- 
out hostilities or bloodshed. But Russian appetite 
grew by what it fed upon, and Muraviev was not 
slow to take advantage of the pressure then being 
exerted upon Peking by Britain and France to ex- 
tend still farther the boundaries of his Siberian 
Empire. He surveyed the coast of the Japan Sea as 
far south as the Korean boundary, and then occu- 
pied Peter the Great and Possiet bays in 1860, an 


[ 206 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


occupation which was sanctioned and made per- 
manent by the Treaty of Peking in the same year. 

Thus Russia, as a result of the general European 
ageression upon China in the mid-nineteenth cen- 
tury, finally established her far eastern boundaries 
on the mainland. In the island of Saghalien she 
first came into contact with the newly opened em- 
pire of Japan. In 1867 she made a naive agreement 
with Japan under which the island was to be joint- 
ly occupied by the two powers. Five years was 
enough to show the unworkability of this plan, and 
Russia ceded Japan the Kurile Islands in return 
for Japanese claims on Saghalien. 

Vladivostok, “the ruler of the East,” was made 
the chief Russian naval station in the Far East, 
and it was hoped for a time that it would at least 
realize Peter the Great’s dream of an open port. 
Some means of communication other than un- 
certain rivers and poor roads was necessary for this, 
however. At last it came—the Trans-Siberian Rail- 
road. In 1898 the first train reached Irkutsk from 
Russia, and the line was opened from Vladivostock 
to Habarovsk. 

By this time, however, the dreams of Peter the 
Great had grown in the minds of the Russian bu- 
reaucracy until they had become a vision of a vast 
Asiatic empire under Russian sway. Vladivostok 


[ 207 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


was good, but there were other ports which were 
better; one of these was at the foot of the Korean 
peninsula, and the other was Talienwan on the Li- 
aotung peninsula. When Japan specified the Liao- 
tung peninsula as a part of the spoils of her victory 
over China in 1895, Russia, first securing the co- 
operation of Germany and France, stepped in and 
forced Japan to relinquish her claims. As a reward 
for this move, which she characterized as a “‘service 
to China,” Russia secured in the following year the 
right to build a railroad across Manchuria to 
Vladivostok, with a branch from Harbin to Port 
Arthur. Two years later she secured a twenty-five- 
year lease on the Liaotung peninsula and the ice- 
free harbor of Port Arthur. The new line, known 
as the Chinese Eastern Railway, was opened in 
1903, and at last Russia had her warm-water port. 

This achievement made Russia the dominant 
power in Northern Asia, and the money-and- 
power-mad bureaucrats at St. Petersburg enlarged 
their vision of empire to the shores of the Yellow 
Sea. Under the agreement with China, Russia was 
authorized to send guards into the railroad zone. 
She had sent in troops far beyond the number need- 
ed for police purposes, and, when the Boxer revolt 
paralyzed China, Russia sent in six army corps and 
occupied the whole of Manchuria. By subtle in- 


{ 208 } 


SE 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


trigue during the negotiations at Peking after the 
Boxer trouble, Russia secured the right to remain 
in Manchuria nearly two years longer. Before this 
time expired she presented new demands to China 
which furnished ample evidence of her intention to 
stay until she was put out. 

At the same time Russia had been busy at the 
court of Korea. Advisers were sent. Concessions 
were secured. Intrigue was rife. All to the end that 
Russian influence and Russian power might over- 
come the opposing wave of Japanese influence and 
Japanese power and reach to the very foot of the 
peninsula. Agreements were made between the 
rival empires; as readily were they broken. 

Another power was watching the Russian ad- 
vance with ill-concealed alarm. Britain’s interests 
in India and China were too vast and too vital for 
her to allow Russia to push too far to the south 
without making a determined effort to resist her. 
Co-operation with Japan was the obvious method, 
and in 1902 was signed the first Anglo-Japanese 
Alliance. This assured Japan that when she and 
Russia came to blows, she could count on British 
support if any third power entered the fray on 
Russia’s side. 

Thus supported, Japan claimed to have found 
that Russia was sending troops into Korea in 


[ 209 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


civilian dress. Tokyo solemnly called a halt. Brief 
and unsuccessful negotiations were followed by the 
outbreak of war in February of tg04. When the 
Treaty of Portsmouth was signed the following 
year, Russia’s dream of a great Asiatic empire had 
faded into a more distant future. The Liaotung 
peninsula, now known as south Manchuria, with 
the railroad south of Changchun, was gone; Japan 
had the same rights in northern Manchuria as 
Russia; the Russian influence in Korea was forever 
broken; and the island of Saghalien, as far north as 
the fiftieth parallel, passed to Japan. 

Not even such a disaster could crush the 
Russian ambitions. Construction was immediately 
begun upon the Amur Railway line, and the line 
around Lake Baikal to replace the ferry there. 
Many stretches of the road were double-tracked. 
Vladivostok, which had been sacrificed to Port 
Arthur, again came into its own; it was heavily 
fortified and garrisoned with eighty thousand men. 
Immigration was encouraged. Industrial develop- 
ment was enhanced. Every preparation was made 
looking toward the day of revenge upon Japan. 

These preparations were rendered unnecessary 
by the development of the international political 
situation. The talk of the “‘open door” in China, 
with equal opportunities for the people of all na- 


{ 210 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


tions, and the insistence upon the maintenance of 
the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire by 
the United States, soon made it clear to the bureau- 
crats of St. Petersburg and Tokyo that if they con- 
tinued quarreling, international honesty might pre- 
vail and neither of them would get the rich 
Manchurian spoil. It behooved the spoilers to co- 
operate. By 1907, such co-operation had replaced 
any feeling of enmity left by the late war, and 
Russia and Japan proceeded under cover of pro- 
fessions of adherence to their international obliga- 
tions to arrange for the division of the wealth of 
Manchuria between themselves. 

How effective was this co-operation between the 
erstwhile enemies the United States was to learn to 
her sorrow. In 1907-8 British-American interests 
secured from China a concession to build two lines 
of railway in Manchuria. These would have con- 
nected the Gulf of Chihli and the Amur River by a 
line some two or three hundred miles west of the 
South Manchuria Railway, crossing the Chinese 
Eastern Railway probably at Tsitsihar. Japan and 
Russia protested, and Great Britain, in spite of the 
new aspect this Russo-Japanese co-operation 
placed upon the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, was con- 
strained to let her ally have her way. The project 
was killed. 


{ 211 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


In 1909 the same combination of forces as effec- 
tively quashed Secretary Knox’s plan for the inter- 
nationalization of the Manchurian railways. This 
plan, utterly impractical as it seems, is the only 
means yet devised which offers any possibility of 
permanent peace in the Far East. But it means the 
renunciation of imperialistic ambitions by both 
Russia and Japan, a renunciation which so far has 
been a matter of words rather than deeds on both 
sides. 

Shut off from warm water in the Yellow Sea by 
Japan’s victory and the later agreements which left 
south Manchuria and Korea in Japanese hands, 
Russia devised a new and still more audacious 
scheme to re-establish her Asian empire. After all, 
the direct route from Baikal to the Gulf of Chihli 
was shorter than the route through Manchuria, and 
Peking was a greater prize than Seoul. The situa- 
tion in Mongolia offered an excellent opportunity 
for Russian intrigue in this direction. While the 
Mongols had voluntarily submitted to the Man- 
chus, they had always enjoyed a large measure of 
independence. In the years just preceding the 
Chinese revolution, there was a marked increase of 
Chinese activity in and about Urga, the Mongolian 
capital. More Chinese troops were sent out, and 
immigration of Chinese colonists and traders was 


{ 212 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


promoted. The Mongols began to realize that their 
nationality was threatened. The Mongol princes 
were already in friendly communication with St. 
Petersburg, and the overthrow of the Manchu 
dynasty was the signal for Russian recognition of 
Mongol autonomy. This was followed by an agree- 
ment, signed as late as September 17, 1914, giving 
Russia a deciding voice in the construction of rail- 
ways in Mongolia. 

But the Great War was upon the world, and the 
days of imperial Russia were numbered. The war 
in Europe soon absorbed all Russia’s energies, and 
her pressure to the East ceased. Japan was not 
slow to seize her advantage. She had made secret 
agreements with Russia in 1907, Ig10, and 1912, 
looking to the partition of Northern China between 
them. But now Japan had Shantung and other ad- 
vantages under the Twenty-one Demands, and in 
1916, by subtly suggesting that she might join 
Germany, she constrained Russia to underwrite all 
of these gains, thus consolidating Japan’s greatly 
advanced position. 

Then came the bolshevik revolution, with re- 
sults no less far-reaching in Asia than in Europe. 
The Siberians were at first bewildered by the 
changes at Petrograd. But the communists were 
active in the East. Soviets were formed and took 


{ 213 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


over the government; allied intervention followed; 
the soviets were wiped out, and support was given 
to the reactionary group surrounding Admiral Kol- 
chak. This called forth a real military effort on the 
part of the soviet government at Moscow. Kol- 
chak was defeated, captured, and executed and his 
adherents driven out of the country. The soviet 
line was brought eastward as far as Lake Baikal 
and a socialist state, known as the Far Eastern 
Republic, was set up in the territory between the 
lake and the Pacific. 

The Japanese military party was determined 
that the confusion in Russia should be taken ad- 
vantage of to extend Japan’s possessions on the 
mainland. The agreements between the Allies as 
to the intervention were openly and repeatedly 
violated, and upon the withdrawal of the Allied 
arms, the intervention became a Japanese occupa- 
tion with Japanese troops in control as far west as 
Lake Baikal. 

The Siberian peasants are not of those who 
lightly tolerate foreign rule. With help from Mos- 
cow they organized as partisans and gradually 
cleared their country of Cossacks and Japanese, 
thus making the Far Eastern Republic a reality 
from Baikal to the Pacific, with the exception of 
Vladivostok, which was still held by the Japanese 


{ 214 ] 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


and Russians they could control, and of Saghalien, 
which was occupied by Japanese troops. The in- 
fant republic struggled on for nearly two years, but 
while it was able to make itself master in its own 
house, it was cut off from the rest of the world by 
a continuous line of reactionary Cossacks and 
Japanese, who kept the man-power of the country 
constantly under arms ready to repel invasion, and 
who literally starved the republic. In November of 
1922, it quitely slipped into soviet Russia, as, ac- 
cording to some observers, it had intended to do 
from the beginning. 

Of the many raids and counterraids across the 
borders of the republic, one is of special impor- 
tance. With the breakdown of the Russian power, 
the Chinese had renewed their efforts to subject 
Mongolia to their rule. The resulting hostility of 
the Mongols made it easy for the Russian reaction- 
ary, Baron Ungern, when he fled from Siberia, to 
drive the Chinese from Urga, and to occupy the 
town as a base from which to make attacks upon 
the Far Eastern Republic. In the summer of 1921 
he made his great raid. He was speedily repulsed, 
and the pursuing Russians not only effected his 
capture but themselves took Urga, where they set 
up a sort of Mongolian soviet régime, which has 
continued to the present time. 


{ 215 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


After this coup, Russia seriously undertook the 
re-establishment of her former position in the Far 
East. Soviet diplomacy had begun its efforts with 
a dramatic renunciation of claims inherited from 
the tsarist régime. After a preamble declaring that 
“all nations should have their independence and 
self-government, and should not submit to being 
bound by other nations,” Moscow offered to deal 
with Peking upon a new basis. Territory seized by 
the tsarist régime was to be returned; the Chinese 
Eastern Railway was to be handed over to China 
without a cent of compensation; the Boxer-indem- 
nity payments were renounced; extraterritoriality 
for Russians was to be canceled; and all treaties 
made by imperial Russia with Japan or other 
powers which were unfair to China were to be 
annulled. 

The Chinese people had just come through a 
very painful experience in their dealings with the 
Allies. Entering the war against Germany at the 
urgent request of the United States, and on the 
theory that by thus making common cause with 
the Allies she would have the opportunity to se- 
cure a fair hearing and an equitable settlement 
of her demands at the Peace Conference, China had 
found herself bound hand and foot and delivered 
over to the mercies of Japan. The name Shantung 


{ 216 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


stands as the symbol for all of the wrong that was 
done and the right that was undone to China at the 
Peace Conference. Toa humiliated and embittered 
China, the voice of Russia offering to deal with her 
in the spirit of fairness and equity was like balm on 
an aching wound. Was this at last a great and 
powerful nation from the West ready to stand by 
China in her struggle against exploitation and 
bondage? The Chinese people were ready to give 
her a chance at least. Russia could not treat her 
worse than had Japan and the Allies. 

But the foreign office at Peking was inclined to 
be cautious. They knew of many a previous oc- 
casion when Russia had spoken fairly—yes, when 
Russia had stood with them against their enemies. 
They remembered her friendly offices after the 
Sino-Japanese War, when the Liaotung peninsula 
was saved to China. They remembered her sup- 
port in the negotiations of 1901 after the Boxer 
trouble, and they also remembered the high cost of 
Russian friendship. Three years after Russia saved 
the Liaotung for China, it was in Russian hands 
and China has not got it back yet. And three years 
after the Boxer negotiations were over, Russia was 
still sprawled all over Manchuria; and when Japan 
drove her back China must stand by and watch the 
erstwhile combatants make an agreement to divide 


1 217 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


her great dependency between themselves. It was 
small wonder that the Chinese diplomats were a bit 
wary of this new Russia which came bearing gifts. 

Events soon showed that there was justification 
for this attitude. The soft words, first spoken in 
Ig1g and repeated in September of 1920, were put 
to the test of good faith in the summer of 1921. It 
will be remembered that Russian troops had en- 
tered Urga, and that a soviet régime had been 
established there under the aegis of Moscow. 
When, in the face of this old-fashioned aggression, 
the soviets asked for the re-establishment of diplo- 
matic relations with Peking, the Chinese demanded 
the immediate evacuation of Mongolian territory. 
Russia offered to negotiate about it; China in- 
sisted upon evacuation as a condition precedent to 
any negotiation. 

Under these circumstances, Moscow sent one 
of her cleverest diplomats, Joffe, to further her 
interests in the Far East. Joffe 1s as good a public- 
ity agent as he is a diplomat, and his plan was to 
play upon the sentiments of the Chinese people in 
order to bring the Chinese government to his way 
of thinking. “Why,” he asked, “was there so much 
fuss about a people’s army in distant Urga when 
the capitalistic nations all had troops within the 
very walls of Peking?” The usual bolshevik at- 


{ 218 | 





THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


tacks upon the imperialistic nations of the West 
were spread broadcast throughout the country. 
America came in for a special diatribe because of 
the friendly feelings which many Chinese still en- 
tertained for the United States. 

Having created what he thought was a favor- 
able atmosphere, Joffe began to make known his 
demands upon China. Outstanding among these 
was a large measure of control in the Chinese 
Eastern Railway. This was hardly consonant with 
earlier professions of intention to turn over the 
railroad to China “‘without a cent of compensa- 
tion,” and Joffe attempted to explain the dis- 
crepancy. He pointed out that the renunciatory 
declaration promised to relinquish rights which had 
accrued from the “‘predatory and violent policy of 
the Tsar’s government,” but that it “did not at 
all annul Russia’s legal and just interests in 
China.” “Even if they turned over the Chinese 
Eastern Railway to China, for instance,” he said, 
‘this will not annul Russia’s interests in this line, 
which is a portion of the Great Siberian Railway 
and unites one part of the Russian territory with 
another.”’ And he closed with the threat that, if 
China continued in her refusal to recognize Russian 
interests, Russia would “consider herself free” from 
her voluntary promises. 


[ 219 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


This was music of an entirely different fempo. 
It was now clear to China and the world that the 
new Russia, despite her idealistic protestations and 
her professed adherence to the principle of self- 
government and the entire independence of na- 
tions, was as active and aggressive a neighbor as 
the tsarist Russia which she had replaced. 

Japan had long realized this, and had lost no 
opportunity to strengthen her own position and to 
counter the expected Russian advance. Her ambi- 
tions in Shantung, in Siberia, and on the Chinese 
Eastern Railway had been thwarted, and in each 
case the weight of America’s influence has been 
thrown into the scale against her. Japan looks 
upon Russia in Asia as her enemy rather than 
China’s, and it is not to be wondered at if she looks 
upon Washington’s efforts as opposition to her 
rather than as assistance to China. Japan has no 
present fear of a rapprochement between Washing- 
ton and Moscow, however, and so—now humoring 
Uncle Sam, now blustering against him, sometimes 
even threatening him—Japanese statecraft is di- 
rected toward securing for the island empire as 
large a share of the spoils of Northern Asia as is 
possible. 

For the directing minds of both Russia and 
Japan the northern half, at least, of the Chinese 


[ 220 } 











THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


territory is a legitimate subject of partition. The 
vast fertile plains of Manchuria, the grazing lands 
and mineral wealth of Mongolia, and the teeming 
cities and ports of the northern provinces of China 
proper are the stakes of a vast game of diplomacy, 
intrigue, economic exploitation, and war. 

The present state of affairs in China itself tends 
strongly to encourage this cynical view, and offers 
an excellent opportunity for the imperialistic play- 
ers to exercise all their skill in the game they are 
playing. The Chinese Republic has never been 
anything but a name. It is merely a euphemism 
for a succession of military adventurers whose great 
aim in life is the enhancement of the prestige of 
their ancestors as measured by the wealth they 
themselves are able to accumulate. Their chief 
concern has been to get their hands upon the 
sources of revenue which the control of Peking 
gives to them. For them, too, China is but a vast 
field for exploitation. 

With a few such leaders in power in Peking and 
with many others of similar character striving 
to supplant them, there is a standing invitation 
to aggressive and unscrupulous diplomacy to use 
wholesale bribery and corruption to secure its 
ends. That the hands of both Russia and Japan 


are at work in the disorganization of the Chinese 


{ 221 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Republic is not to be denied if we would look at 
the realities of the situation. The very vigor and 
frequency of denials would do much to convince 
the sophisticated observer if there were not ample 
other evidence available. 

Out of the sorry tangle of political corruption 
and diplomatic intrigue have come three so-called 
“‘treaties.”” What purport to be the terms of these, 
have been published. If we recall the history of 
Russo-Japanese’and Russo-Chinese diplomacy and 
the vast differences which have been shown to 
exist between the published terms and the actual 
terms of their agreements, we shall be forgiven if 
we suspect that the published terms of these new 
agreements do not tell the whole story. But let us 
consider them as they are published, and then look 
at the actual situation. 

First, in point of time, is the Sino-Russian 
agreement of May 31, 1924. China holds Russia to 
her generous offer in part. A conference is to be 
held “‘within one month” to annul the tsarist 
treaties. Agreements between the tsarist govern- 
ment and third powers detrimental to China are 
declared null and void. China’s sovereignty over 
Mongolia is affirmed, withdrawal of soviet troops 
to be arranged at the forementioned conference. 


Bolshevik propaganda in China is prohibited. 
{ 222 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


Boundaries and navigation rights are also to be 
fixed by the conference. Concessions, the Boxer 
indemnity, and extraterritoriality are renounced. 
On its face, it 1s a fair string of victories for Chinese 
diplomacy. What did the soviets get? First, rec- 
ognition, possession of the old Russian legation and 
consulates, and, by making her representative the 
first ambassador to China, the deanship of the 
diplomatic corps. Second, the promised suppres- 
sion by China of White Guard activities in her 
territory. Last, but far from least, the promise of 
joint control of the great artery without which 
Russia’s position is hopeless—the Chinese Eastern 
Railway. 

Such was the first of the three treaties. What 
didit mean? The promised conference 1s still in the 
future. Russia is quite as desirous of being freed 
from the old agreements as is China. While Mos- 
cow blandly recognizes Chinese sovereignty over 
Mongolia, she as blandly enters into a treaty with 
the latter country recognizing Mongolian auton- 
omy, which Chicherin has described as being 
“practical independence and allowing the Mon- 
golians full freedom in foreign affairs.” Russia has 
within the last few weeks withdrawn her troops 
from Urga, first taking care to establish there a 
Mongolian soviet government wholly in sympathy 


{ 223 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


with Moscow and which will facilitate the speedy 
return of those troops when occasion demands. 
Concessions, extraterritoriality, and the Boxer 
indemnity had long since gone by the board, 
abolished by the Chinese themselves. As for bol- 
shevik propaganda, there is every evidence that it 
has increased rather than diminished since the 
treaty was signed. 

Russia gave practically nothing. What did she 
get? Joint control of the Chinese Eastern Railway? 
The Chinese government’s promise was clear and 
unequivocal. But the Chinese government’s power 
is very limited. It is extremely shadowy in Man- 
churia, where Chang Tso-Lin is no slower than the 
Mongolians to assert his autonomy; and the 
Chinese Eastern Railway is in what he chooses to 
call the “autonomous three eastern provinces.” 
Before Russia may have Joint control of any rail- 
roads in his territory, Chang, not Peking, must be 
seen. He ignored the treaty until he found himself 
at war with Peking and the Russians making dis- 
concerting demonstrations in his rear. Chang must 
choose between loss of the railway and complete 
overthrow. In September, 1925, a new treaty be- 
tween Moscow and Mukden was given publicity. 
This reiterated many of the provisions of the pre- 
vious document, and the arrangement for the joint 


[ 224 J 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


control of the railway was affirmed. Soviet Russia 
at last secured the long-desired joint control over 
the coveted railway, and is now busily engaged in 
converting this into sole control as rapidly as cir- 
cumstances will permit. 

One paragraph found in both of these treaties is 
significant. In each case the contracting parties 
“agree that the future of the Chinese Eastern Rail- 
way shall be determined by the Republic of China 
and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to the 
exclusion of any third party or parties.”’ This 1s 
plain notice to Great Britain and France with their 
investment interests, to the United States with her 
internationalization schemes, and to Japan with 
her own designs upon the road that Russia is going 
to fix the future of the Chinese Eastern Railway 
with China alone, and that the ultimate arrange- 
ment is to be in no way detrimental to Russia. 

The progress of soviet diplomacy was becoming 
alarming, and Japan determined to arrive at an 
adjustment of outstanding differences. Hitherto 
she had been very dictatorial in announcing her 
terms for recognition, and the Russians had been 
hardly less extreme in their demands. The irrecon- 
cilable attitude was now softened on both sides. 
New negotiators, Karakhan and Yoshizawa, took 
up the task, and on January 20, 1925, the latest 


{ 225 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Russo-Japanese treaty was signed. The soviets se- 
cured recognition of the old Russian legation and 
consulate properties, the revision of all treaties 
since that of Portsmouth, the suppression of White 
Guard activities, and the evacuation of northern 
Saghalien. In return, Japan obtained a ratification 
of the Treaty of Portsmouth; temporary fishing- 
rights in Russian waters; the prohibition of bol- 
shevik propaganda; an agreement for the settle- 
ment of Russian debts on as favorable a basis as 
any other nation may receive; and, most impor- 
tant, extensive rights of exploitation for oi! and 
coal in northern Saghalien. In addition, she re- 
ceived an expression of the personal regret of the 
Russian negotiator for the Nikolaievsk incident. 
The difference between the Russian concessions 
in this treaty and the exaggerated Japanese de- 
mands of four years ago is the measure of the extent 
to which Russia has come back in the Far East. It 
has been possible to do little more than suggest the 
processes by which Russia has re-established her 
position in Northeastern Asia. It took a great deal 
of diplomacy, four conferences, and a large amount 
of irregular fighting. But Russia has come back. 
The soviets today occupy all of the territory in 
Siberia within the boundaries of the former Russian 
Empire, and in addition they have a firm hold on 


{ 226 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


Mongolia. The Chinese Eastern Railway is once 
more in their grasp, carrying the products of 
Siberia and Manchuria to Vladivostok, which is 
again a Russian port. 

In spite of the turmoil of war and revolution, 
Russia finds herself in as strong a position in the 
Far East today as in 1914. And she 1s the same 
old Russia—the Russia of one hundred and fifty 
million people constantly pressing outward, con- 
stantly thirsting for warm water; the same old 
Russia—expansive and expanding, dominating and 
domineering, who has done her full share to keep 
the world in arms for more than a century. Her 
leaders are no whit more scrupulous—and be it 
said, no whit less so—than those of imperial days. 

Thus Russia and these leaders find themselves 
in an unusually favorable position in the Far East. 
The slogans of the war—democracy, self-determi- 
nation, and independence—have echoed through 
the Orient, and have stressed the discord between 
occidental preaching and occidental practice. The 
reluctance of the treaty powers to make any con- 
cessions, however justifiable; the long delay of 
France in ratifying the results of the Washington 
Conference; the refusal of Japan even to discuss 
withdrawal from south Manchuria, at the expira- 
tion of the Russian lease; and, above all, the con- 


[ 227 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


stant assumption of superiority both in word and 
deed by Europeans, Japanese, and Americans have 
exasperated the more awakened section of Chinese 
opinion to the limit of endurance. 

This makes a rich soil in which bolshevism may 
sow its troublous seeds. Communism as an eco- 
nomic or political doctrine is wholly opposed to the 
genius and tradition of the Chinese race. But ex- 
treme nationalism, an instrument highly favored at 
Moscow, despite internationalist professions, 1s 
eagerly seized upon by the more active Chinese as a 
possible means of freeing their country from the 
claims in which Europe and Japan, and, to a lesser 
extent, America, now hold her. The evidences of 
Russian activity along this line are too abundant 
to leave any doubt as to its existence. Having re- 
established her old position by arms and diplo- 
macy, Russia is now preparing for still further ad- 
vances by stirring up the Chinese against her two 
chief rivals and her only likely foes—Japan and 
Britain. 

For it is the Japanese and the British that have 
felt the full weight of the present outburst of xeno- 
phobia. That this is not spontaneous but due to 
conscious direction is shown by a curious feature 
of a number of the recent outbreaks. They 
started as strikes against the foreigner. A few days 


{ 228 } 


THE RUSSIANS IN THE FAR EAST 


later, about the time necessary for communication 
with Peking, Americans had been suddenly ex- 
cluded, and the strike continued with renewed 
vigor against the others. It is apparent, then, that 
care is being taken not to antagonize America and 
China for the present, nor to drive America over to 
the side of Great Britain and Japan. They are the 
enemies. America may still be useful in restrain- 
ing Japan if any untoward opportunity should offer 
for her to advance once more. 

That Japan will advance, if such opportunity 
does offer, is as sure as history and the covert con- 
struction of strategic railroads in Manchuria can 
make it. That she is even now supporting the 
Manchurian overlord and using his forces as a 
screen to cover her own purposes is as certain as 
anything in the political realm can be. There is as 
little question that Russia 1s supporting and ma- 
neuvering behind the rival forces of Feng, the 
much-heralded Christian general. Open warfare 
between these two foreign-supported Chinese fac- 
tions may come with surprising suddenness. How 
long the struggle would be confined to the Chinese 
rivals it is useless to speculate, but unless some un- 
expected distraction occurs, the two great imperial 
rivals are so close to the front and their interests are 
so deeply involved that we are forced to contem- 


[ 229 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


plate the possibility—even the probability—of an- 
other great war. It will start, at least, in the East, 
and it will begin, not between Japan and America, 
but between Japan and Russia. 

What America’s part in such a war would be, 
no man can tell. Neutrality would be the obvious 
course, and it is difficult to imagine this country 
sending its sons to fight at the side of either soviet 
Russia or imperial Japan—or it would be difficult 
if Roosevelt had*not threatened to go to the aid of 
Japan in 1904, and if American troops had not 
already served under Japanese generals in Siberia 
in Ig19. America’s interests as a great trading na- 
tion and America’s prestige as a great power would 
be seriously endangered in a renewal of the struggle 
between Japan and Russia. We could hardly stand 
by and hope to escape scot-free, and a thousand 
things might happen to drag us into war. 

While such possibilities are abroad in the world, 
it were well for us not to dwell too happily on silks 
and cherry blossoms, or too disdainfully on bolshe- 
viks and soviets, or too ethereally on peace and 
disarmament, but to realize that in the Far East 
there is going on at this moment a desperate game 
of world-politics, no less fraught with danger to 
America and American interests than the game 
which culminated at Sarajevo in June of 1914. 


[ 230 ] 


APPENDIX 















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LEADING STATESMEN OF MODERN 
CHINA" 


THE MANCHU EMPEROR 


P’u Y1 (Hsvan Tune), former emperor.—Son of Prince 
Ch’un (Tsai Li) and nephew of Emperor Kwang Hsu. Born on 
February 11, 1906. Succeeded to the throne, under the 
regency of his father, on November 14, 1908, and adopted the 
reign-title of Hsuan Tung. Abdicated on February 12, 1912. 
His mother was the daughter of the late Jung Lu. Under the 
republic the former emperor continued his studies under his old 
tutors and also received instruction from Mr. R. F. Johnston, 
C.B.E. On June 30, 1917, Chang Hsun carried out a mon- 
archical coup in the interests of the Manchu dynasty. Hsuan 
Tung ascended the throne, but the “monarchy” survived little 
more than a week and once again his name was affixed to an 
“abdication.” Cut off his queue in May, 1922. Married in 
December, 1922. Ejected from the palace by the “Christian 
general” on November 5, 1924, and fled to the Japanese lega- 
tion on November 29 and Tientsin on February 24, where 
he is now residing in the Japanese concession. 


THE MODEL TUCHUN 


Yen Hs1-suan.—Shamsi. Born, 1882. A graduate of a 
military-staff school in Japan. Lieutenant general with the 
brevet rank of general of the army, and /utuh of Shansi. In 
Japan he joined the Tungmenghui, and after returning from 
that country he was appointed director of the military school 


1 China Year Book, (1925), edited by H. G. W. Woodhead. 
{ 233 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


and chief of the Eighty-sixth Regiment. When the Revolution 
broke out, he took up the revolutionary cause, and was 
elected ¢utwh of Shansi. He led an army and occupied Koupei 
and district. Was the first to propose that the troops should 
be disbanded in order to curtail expenses, and he himself dis- 
banded more than 30,000 troops in his province. When the re- 
bellion in the south broke out he was a strong supporter of 
the central government. Tuchun of Shansi since 1916. Con- 
currently civil governor of Shansi. Non-partisan. Author of 
The Discipline of the Revolutionary Army. Known as the 
“model tuchun.” 


YUAN SHIH-KAI 


Yuan SHIH-KAI.—Born, 1859. Chinese resident at Seoul 
at age of twenty-six. Expelled during Sino-Japanese War. 
Judicial commissioner, Chihli, 1897. Director general for 
training of modern army, 1895. Assisted Empress Dowager in 
coup d’état, 1898. Governor, Shantung, 1899, where he pro- 
tected foreigners against Boxers in 1goo. Viceroy, Chihli, 
1g01. Minister, Army Reorganization Council, 1903. Presi- 
dent, Board of Foreign Affairs, 1907. Dismissed from all offices 
in January, 1909, after Empress Dowager’s death, and re- 
mained unemployed and in retirement until the 1911 Revolu- 
tion when he was appointed Hukuang viceroy, with command 
of naval and military forces (October 14), and premier (No- 
vember 1). Authorized to arrange peace with revolutionaries, 
and eventually arranged abdication of Manchus (in February, 
1912), himself becoming provisional president of republic. 
Elected formal president, October, 1913. Whereafter he ruled 
autocratically until latter part of 1915, when he attempted to 
make himself emperor. A widespread revolt followed, and he 
abandoned project, dying in June, 1916. 


1 234 ] 


APPENDIX 


DR. SUN YAT-SEN 


Sun Wen (Sun Yat-sEn).—Kwantung. Born in 1866, 
the son of a farmer in the Hsiangshan district, Learned 
English at an early age, and studied under Dr. Kerr, of the 
American Mission. Enrolled as a student of the Alice Me- 
morial Hospital at Hongkong in 1887, whence he graduated as 
“Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery, Hongkong,” in 1892. 
Started to practice in Macao, where he organized the Young 
China party. Subsequently settled in Canton, where he be- 
came an active revolutionary. After the failure of a conspiracy 
at Canton in 1895 he fled to Macao, and thence proceeded to 
Hongkong, Japan, Honolulu, and America, in all of which 
places he obtained adherents to the reform party. Arrived in 
England in 1896, and on October 11 of that year was kid- 
napped outside the Chinese legation by order of the Chinese 
Minister. It was intended to ship Dr. Sun to China as a 
lunatic, but he managed to make his plight known to Dr. 
Cantlie, who was instrumental in effecting his release after 
twelve days’ imprisonment. Subsequently Dr. Sun toured 
through Europe, America, and the East as a revolutionary 
propagandist. In Japan (with General Huang Hsing) he was 
instrumental in founding the Tungmenghui. Was in England 
when the Wuchang outbreak occurred, but came out to 
China at the end of rgit, and was elected provisional president 
of the republic by the Nanking Council. Resigned from the 
presidency on the abdication of the Manchus, on the under- 
standing that Yuan Shih-kai should be elected to succeed him, 
and proceeded on a tour to Wuchang and South China, where 
he advocated a socialistic policy. Came to Peking at the Presi- 
dent’s request in August, 1912, and was accorded an en- 
thusiastic welcome. Advocated an extensive program of rail- 


{ 235 | 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


way construction, and on September Io was appointed by the 
President “to consider and draft plans for a national system of 
railways,” and to “submit and discuss the same with inter- 
national financiers.” Visited Kalgan, and on September 17 
left for Taiyuanfu and Shanghai. Strongly advocated the 
transfer of the capital from Peking to Wuchang or Nanking. 
His authority as chief of the National Railway Corporation 
was canceled on the outbreak of the rebellion, and Dr. Sun 
subsequently took up his residence in Japan. Dr. Sun was in 
Shanghai tn 1920, but proceeded to Canton in 1921 when the 
Kwangsi officials were ejected by General Chen Chiung-ming, 
and was elected president of China by the so-called “parlia- 
ment” there in April, 1921. He was expelled from Canton by 
Chen Chiung-min in the summer of 1922, and returned to 
Shanghai, where he remained until February, 1923, when he 
again established himself in Canton. Maintained himself in 
Canton in 1924 by Yunnanese and Hunanese mercenaries, who 
supported themselves on opium, gambling, and _ brothel 
licenses. Became closely allied with the soviet. Quarreled with 
and massacred merchant volunteers. Died in Peking on March 
12, 1925, one of his last messages being one of friendship to the 
soviet. 


THE “CHRISTIAN GENERAL” 


Fenc Yu-ystanc.—Anhwel. Commander of the Eleventh 
Division. Appointed acting tuchun of Shansi on August 25, 
1921, upon sudden and mysterious death of Yen Hsiang-wen, 
who had been appointed only two months previously when 
Chen Shu-fan fled. Transferred to Honan, May 10, 1922. Was 
appointed inspector of army and transferred his troops to 
Peking, October, 1922. His troops played a decisive part in 
the Chihli-Fengtien War. His troops being stationed at Nan 


[ 236 } 


APPENDIX 


Yuan, near Peking, Feng was influential in the politics of Pek- 
ing during the spring and summer of 1923. His untimely resig- 
nation in June was considered to have brought about the flight 
of President Li to Tientsin and the coup d’état of 1923. Tupan 
(director) of defense on northwestern frontier, May, 1923. 
Known as the “Christian General,” Second Order of Merit. 
A full general in the army. Responsible for the coup of 
October, 1924, when he seized Peking and the President and 
established a provisional government. Ejected Manchu em- 
peror. Has established his headquarters at Kalgan, but still 
has some troops at Peking. 


THE LOYANG WAR-LORD 


Wu Pet-ru.—Shantung. Born, 1873. Obtained his de- 
gree of Hsiutsai (B.A.) at the age of twenty-one. Graduated 
with honor from the Kai Ping Military Academy, near Tient- 
sin, 1898. After a brief service under the late General Nieh 
Shih-cheng, entered a military school of which Marshal Tuan 
Chi-jui was director. After graduation, General Wu joined the 
Third Army Division, of which General Tsao Kun was then 
commander. Was promoted to battalion commander. Partici- 
pated bravely in the military campaigns in Shansi, Szech- 
wan, and Honan, since the republic. Awarded Fuwei Chiang- 
chun. Became Commander of the Sixth Brigade of the Third 
Division early in 1916. When General Tsao Kun was made 
military governor of Chihli, Wu was instructed to act for him 
as commander of the Third Division. Participated in the fight 
against General Chang Hsun’s monarchical movement, sum- 
mer, 1917. His division was sent to recapture Yochow and 
Changsha from the south in the spring of 1918. General Wu 
was successful as these two cities were retaken by the Third 
Division. The return of his troops from Hunan to Chihli in 


[ 237 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


the summer of 1920 was opposed by Marshal Tuan, resulting 
in the armed conflict responsible for the downfall of the Anfu 
Club. Appointed vice-inspecting-general of Chihli, Shantung, 
and Honan, 1920. Inspector-general of Hupeh and Hunan, 
1921. Defeated the Fengtien invasion of Chihli in the spring 
of 1922. Appointed minister of war, June 12, 1922, but did not 
accept. Made Fu Wei Shang Chiang Chun, January 1, 1923, 
succeeded Tsao Kun as inspector-general of Chihli, Shantung, 
and Honan when Tsao became president of the republic— 
October, 1923. Was asked to promote highways in the three 
provinces, January, 1924. First-class Tashou Paokwang 
Chiaho decoration. Defeated in the civil war of 1924, owing 
to Feng Yu-hsiang’s treachery. At present in Yochow. 


DR. W.| W. YEN 


Yen Hut-cu’1nc (W. W. Yen).—Shanghai. Born, 1877. 
Had early education in local schools. Studied in the Episcopal 
High School, Virginia, U.S.A., 1895-97, winning therefrom 
gold medal for English composition and debating. Studied in 
the academic and law departments of the University of 
Virginia, receiving degree of B.A. and law diploma. Member 
of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Professor of English, St. 
John’s University, Shanghai, 1900-1906. Chinshih, Hanlin. 
One of the founders and honorary secretary of the World’s 
Chinese Students’ Federation, Shanghai. Member of various 
educational and social organizations. LL.D., Peking, 1906. 
Secretary to the Chinese legation at Washington, 1908-Io. 
Was recalled to Peking to organize the Press Bureau, becom- 
ing its director. Junior councilor, ministry of foreign affairs, 
Igt1. After various promotions, was appointed vice-minister 
of foreign affairs, April, 1912. Minister to Germany and Den- 
mark, 1913, 1918-20. Plenipotentiary to the Opium Confer- 


[ 238 ] 


APPENDIX 


ence at The Hague, May 26, 1913. Appointed minister of for- 
eign affairs, August 11, 1920. Appointed acting premier, De- 
cember 18, 1921, upon resignation of Chin Yun-p’eng. Reap- 
pointed acting premier, June 11, 1922, when Li Yuan-hung 
reassumed the presidency, but resigned a few weeks later. 
President, Commission on Adjustment of National Finance, 
August, 1923. Minister of agriculture and commerce, January 
12, 1924. Author, translator, and editor of various books. 
Second Order of Merit. Chairman, Western Returned Stu- 
dents’ Club, Peking, 1923. Appointed premier after outbreak 
of civil war in September, 1924. Resigned after the “Christian 
general’s” coup of October 23, 1924. 


FORMER PRESIDENT HSU SHIH-CH ANG 


Hsu Suin-cy’anc—Honan. Probationary grand counci- 
lor, June, 1905. Minister of Government Council, June, 1905. 
President, Board of Police, October, 1905. Grand councilor, 
February, 1906. Removed from Grand Council, November, 
1906. Special Mission to Manchuria, December, 1906. Presi- 
dent, Board of Interior, December, 1906. Viceroy of Man- 
churia, April, 1907. President of Board of Communications, 
February, 1909. Director-general, Tientsin-Pukow Railway, 
July, 1909. Grand secretary, February, 1910. Grand coun- 
cilor, August, 1910. Appointed vice-premier in Prince Ching’s 
cabinet, May, 1911. Removed from that post and appointed 
vice-president of the Privy Council on November 1, 1911. 
Chief of General Staff, November, 1911. High commissioner 
for training imperial guard, and grand guardian to the em- 
peror, December, 1911. Relieved of post on general staff, 
February, 1912. On the resignation of the Prince Regent was 
appointed, with Shih Hsu, grand guardian of the emperor. A 
“sworn brother” of President Yuan Shih-kai. Secretary ‘of 


1 239 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


State, 1915. With Chao Erh-hsiin, Li Ching-hsi, and Chang 
Chien received the title of “the four friends of Sungshan”’ (1.e., 
of Yuan Shih-kai). On the failure of Yuan Shih-kai’s attempt 
to establish a monarchy, Hsu Shih-ch’ang resigned his secre- 
taryship and retired to Honan. Returned to Peking, Novem- 
ber, 1916, to mediate between the president, Li Yuan-hung, 
and the premier, Tuan Chi-jui. During the unsettled period, 
1917-18, he remained detached from Peking politics, but with- 
out losing his influence over the contending factions. On Sep- 
tember 4, 1918, elected president of the republic of China, at 
a joint meeting of the-Senate and House of Representatives of 
the so-called ‘““Tuchuns’ Parliament,” by 425 out of 436 votes. 
Received honorary Doctor’s degree from University of Paris. 
Sent Chu Chi-chien to represent him, June, 1921. Vacated 
presidency, June 1, 1922, and left for Tientsin on the following 
day, where he still resides. 


THE MUKDEN WAR-LORD 


Cuanc Tso-L1n.—Mukden. General Chang is under fifty 
years of age. He received no education in his youth. Fought 
on the side of Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. After 
the war General Chang surrendered to the Chinese govern- 
ment at the request of Japan. He and his Hunghutze were 
taken into the Chinese government service and received quick 
promotion on account of their bravery. Appointed military 
governor of Fengtien in 1911, which position he is still holding. 
First commanded the Twenty-seventh Army Division and 
now has under control nearly 300,000 men scattered all over 
China. Served Former President Yuan faithfully until the col- 
lapse of the latter’s monarchical movement in 1916. When 
General Chang Hsun made his coup d’état in 1917, he assisted 
General Tuan Chi-jui in restoring the republic. Was ap- 


{ 240 } 


APPENDIX 


pointed inspector-general of the three eastern provinces in 
1918. Jointly with General Tsao Kun, led an expeditionary 
force to disband the Anfu Political Club in the summer of 
1920. Attended the “Super-Tuchuns’ Conference” at Tient- 
sin in May, 1921. Ordered to be relieved of all his posts after 
being defeated by the Chihli party, May, 1922. After his dis- 
missal he defied the central government and ruled Manchuria 
as an independent province. Victorious in 1924, civil war, and 
has since occupied and garrisoned Chihli, Shantung, Anhwei, 
and Kiungsu. . 


FORMER PRESIDENT LI YUAN-HUNG 


Li Yuan-nunc.—Hupeh. Born, October 19, 1864. Studied 
at Pei-yang Naval College, graduating in 1888 after a course of 
six years. Served on a cruiser during the Sino-Japanese War. 
After the war he was engaged for service at Nanking by Vice- 
roy Chang Chih Tung. On the latter’s transfer to Wuchang he 
accompanied him to assist in the organization of the modern 
troops there. Thence he went to Japan for two years to study 
fortification. On his return he became a major in the cavalry 
in 1895, and subsequently held several commands, including 
that of colonel in the Twenty-first Brigade. He was in charge 
of the organization of the Changteh Maneuvers in 1905 and 
for the five following years served on the staff at Wuchang. 
On the outbreak of the Revolution at Wuchang he was forced 
into accepting the command of the revolutionary forces, whose 
operations he directed thenceforward. He was mainly instru- 
mental in arranging for the Shanghai Peace Conference. After 
the abdication of the Manchus he was elected vice-president 
of the republic and appointed chief of the general staff and 
tutuh of Hupeh (November, 1911). Given rank of general on 
September 7. Acting sutuh, Kiangsi, June 8, 1913. Re-elected 


{ 241 J 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


vice-president of the republic, October 7, 1913. On the death 
of Yuan Shih-kai, became president of the republic (June, 
1916), resigned July 1, 1917, when Chang Hsun carried out his 
coup d’état. When Hsu Shih-chang left the capital, June, 
1922, Li was asked to reassume the presidency. Was compelled 
to leave the capital September, 1923, when plans were perfected 
for Tsao Kun to become president; first fled to Tientsin and 
later went to Shanghai and Japan. Author of various lecture 
notes not published. Formerly member of Chinputang but re- 
signed therefrom when accepting chief of general staff. First 
Order of Merit. First elass of Chiaho and Wenhu decorations. 
Now resides in Tientsin. 


THE PROVISIONAL CHIEF EXECUTIVE 


Tuan Cn’1-ju1r—Anhwei. A graduate of the Peiyang 
Military School. Yuan Shih-kai’s chief military adviser while 
viceroy of Chihli. Brigade general in Fukien in 1906, deputy 
lieutenant general of the Chinese Bordered Yellow Banner, 
October, 1907; and general commanding the Sixth Division 
of the Luchun, December, 1909. Commander-in-chief, Kiang- 
peh, December, 1910. He was in a large measure responsible 
for the reorganization upon modern lines of the northern 
army, and after Yuan Shih-kai accepted the premiership in 
November, 1911, he succeeded him as viceroy of the Hukuang 
provinces. On the recall of Baron Feng Kuo-chang, General 
Tuan took command of the First Army. He was one of the 
most prominent of the military commanders who signed the 
memorial to the throne at the end of January, urging the 
emperor to abdicate. On the formation of the first republican 
cabinet he was elected minister of war. Given rank of general 
(Shang Chiang), September 7, 1912; the field marshal, 1915. 
Chief of the headquarter’s staff, 1915. Acting premier, May 


[ 242 J 


APPENDIX 


I, 1913, to July 19, 1913. Acting ¢utuh of Hupeh (during vice- 
president’s absence in Peking), December Io, 1913. Chiang- 
chun and acting governor of Fengtien. Minister of war, 1914. 
Granted sick-leave, June 1, 1915. In May, 1916, Tuan Chi- 
jui was appointed premier and charged with the formation of 
a responsible cabinet. Dismissed by Li Yuan-hung, May, 
1917, but resumed office in July after the failure of Chang 
Hsun’s monarchical coup d’état. Resigned October, 1918. At- 
tempting to rescue the Anfu Club, organized without authority 
an army, called by himself the Ting Kuo-chun, and personally 
directed it to oppose the combined march of Chihli and Feng- 
tien forces on Peking, 1920. Retired and resided in Tientsin, 
1922. Installed as provisional chief executive by Chang Tso- 
lin and Feng Yu-hsiang in November, 1924. 


TANG SHAO-YI 


Tang Suao-y1.—Kwangtung. Educated in America. 
Secretary to Yuan Shih-kai while the latter was imperial 
resident in Korea. Consul-general in Korea after the Sino- 
Japanese War. Then employed on the staff of the Northern 
Railway Administration. In Shantung with Yuan Shih-ka1, 
winter, 1900. Customs Taotai, Tientsin, February, 1902. 
Special commissioner to Tibet, September, 1904. Proceeded 
to India as special envoy, to negotiate the Tibet Convention, 
which was subsequently completed at Peking in April, 1906. 
Acting junior vice-president of the Board of Foreign Affairs, 
November, 1905. Substantive junior vice-president of the 
Board of Foreign Affairs, February, 1906. Director-general 
Shanghai-Nanking, and Lu-Han railways, 1906. Controller- 
general, Revenue Council, May, 1906. Senior vice-president of 
Board of Communications, November, 1906. Continued to 
act as vice-president of Board of Foreign Affairs. First gov- 


[ 243 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


ernor of Fengtien on reorganization of government of Man- 
churia, April, 1907. Special envoy to America to thank the 
government for waiving part of the Boxer indemnity, July, 
1908. Resigned governorship of Fengtien, July, 1909. Ex- 
pectant vice-president, Board of Communications, and acting 
president, August, Ig10, and resigned in the spring. Ap- 
pointed minister of communications on the dismissal of Sheng 
Hsuan-huai on October 26, 1911. Proceeded to Shanghai as 
Yuan Shih-kai’s delegate to negotiate with the revolutionary 
leaders in December. Resigned his position as delegate on De- 
cember 27. Appointed premier, after abdication of the man- 
chus on February 12. Resignation as premier accepted on 
June 27, when he was appointed superior adviser to the presi- 
dent on state affairs. A member of the Tung Meng Hui. One of 
the four directors of the Canton government, 1918. Minister 
of finance at Canton, 1919-22. First-class Tashou Chiaho 
Paokwang decoration. Li Yuan-hung appointed Tang pre- 
mier, August 5, 1922, to succeed Dr. Yen. Tang refusing to 
come up to Peking, his appointment was canceled on Septem- 
ber 19, whereupon Dr. C. H. Wang was made premier. Ap- 
pointed but refused office as minister of foreign affairs, in 
November, 1924. 


FORMER PRESIDENT TSAO KUN 


Tsao Kun.—Chihli. Born, December 12, 1862. Gradu- 
ated from Peiyang Military Academy. Was on active service 
during the Sino-Japanese War. Until recently general of Third 
Army Division. Tuchun of Chihli, 1917-23 (that office was 
thereupon abolished). Appointed inspector-general of Szech- 
wan, Kwangtung, Hunan, and Kiangsi, June, 1918, for opera- 
tions against the south. When Chang Hsun re-established the 
Manchu monarchy, July, 1917, Tsao directed his forces 


{ 244 ] 


APPENDIX 


against Chang’s forces in concert with Former Marshal Tuan 
Chi-jui. With Marshal Chang Tso-lin’s army, Tsao’s forces 
succeeded in dissolving the Anfu Political Club, 1920. Inspec- 
tor-general, Chihli, Shantung, and Honan provinces. Elected 
president of the republic, October 5, 1923, by the Peking 
parliament, most of whose members were reported to have 
been lavishly bribed for the purpose. Seized, and since im- 
prisoned in his palace, after the “Christian general’s” coup of 
October, 1924. 
SUN YAT-SEN’S ENEMY 

Cuen Cuiunc-minc.—Kwangtung. Tutuh of Kwang- 
tung, June, 1913. Drove out the Kwangsi tuchun, Mo Yung- 
hsin, in 1920 and was appointed civil governor. Concerned in 
the Yunnan revolt, 1915-16. Commander-in-chief of the 
Kwangtung troops. Civil governor of Kwangtung. Minister 
of war in the Canton government. In 1922 his troops attacked 
and overthrew Sun Yat-sen, and after the latter’s flight, Chen 
reassumed command of all the Kwangtung forces, but was 
himself driven out of Canton in January, 1923. Persistently 
fought against Sun Yat-sen, 1923-24. His forces were recently 
attacked and defeated by the Kuomintang army (chiefly 
Yunnanese mercenaries) in Kwangtung. 


LITTLE HSU 


Hsu Suu-rsenc.—Kiangsu. Was private secretary to 
Former Marshal Tuan Chi-jui. Sent to Japan to study mili- 
tary science by Tuan. Secretary-in-chief of the cabinet; re- 
signed, November, 1916. Played a prominent part in Peking 
in 1917-18. Sent on a special mission to Japan, October, 1918. 
During the armed struggle between the Chihli military leaders 
and Anfu Club, in 1920, Hsu, who was commanding general of 
the northwest frontier army, was in chief command. After the 


{ 245 } 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Anfu army was defeated, Hsu fled for refuge in the Japanese 
legation, which notified the Chinese government on Novem- 
ber 16, 1920, that he had mysteriously escaped. He has re- 
mained at large ever since. Generally referred to as “Little 
Hsu.” In October, 1922, was implicated in the revolt against 
the Fukien tuchun, and another mandate was issued ordering 
his arrest. Expelled from Shanghai during the civil wars of 
1924. Now touring in Europe as special industrial commis- 
sioner of the chief executive. 


[ 246 | 


INDEX 


5 





INDEX 


American Immigration Law, 155 

Anfu party, 27; collapse of, 32 

Anhwei party, see Anfu 

Anglo-Chinese Commercial Trea- 
ty of 1902, 95, 133 

Anglo-Chinese Commission, on 
rendition of Weihaiwei, 145 

Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 211; 
abrogation of, 155; for reduc- 
tion of Tsingtao, 149; source 
of, 209 

Anti-foreign sentiment, 75; see 
Karahan 

Anti-Japanese movement, 57 f., 
72 ff., 75, 77, 152; in American 
colleges, 160 

Antung-Mukden Railway, Ja- 
pan demands lease of, 151 


Banque Industrielle de Chine, 
162 

Belgium, in China, 172 

Boone University, at Wuchang, 
160 

Boxer uprising, 7, 8, 18, 57, 185; 
indemnity, 146 f., 168; pay- 
ments to France, see Gold 
Franc Case; treaty following, 
139 

British American Tobacco Com- 
pany, 135 

British Chambers of Commerce, 
Annual Conference of, in 1921, 


94 


Bureau of National Loans, see 
loans 


Buriats, 202 


Cantlie, Sir James, 14 

Canton: foreign trade in, 82; 
-Hankow Railway proposed, 
157; -Kowloon Railway, 142 


Canton Christian College, 79 


Central Education Society, in 
China, 22 


Chang Chih-tung, Learn, 5 


Chang Hsun, 28; in Second Rev- 
olution, 23 


Chang Shao-tseng, premier, 35 


Chang Tso-lin, 32, 33, 39, 41, 
11g, 224; and France, 164; 
and the soviet, 169;army of, 52, 
171; for central government, 
34; supported by Japan, 154 

Chang Yen-mao, 10 ats 

Chihli party, 27; domination of 
the northern provinces, 38 

China: agriculture in, 182 f.; 
American interests in, see 
United States; Bolshevism in, 
see Soviet; communication in, 
179; corporations, 189; cur- 
rency, §§f.; customs tariff, 
130 ff.; distribution of popula- 
tion in, 178; economic re- 
sources, 192; election to House 
of Representatives, 22; fi- 
nances in, $2; foreign garrisons 


[ 249 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


in, 138 ff.; foreign interests in, 
see respective countries; in- 
dustrial development, 184; 
Japanese financial hold over, 
153; legal interpretations in, 
188; literacy in, 50; military 
resources of, 51; postal service, 
132; provincialism encouraged, 
181; railways, 54f.; reform 
in, see reform; republic, see 
Chinese Republic; roads, 179 
f.; tariff autonomy wanted, 
133 ff.; taxation, 125; trade of, 
53 f. 

Chinese Chambers of Commerce, 
74 

Chinese Eastern Railway, 151, 
167, 168, 208, 216, 219, 223, 
224; management of, 119 


Chinese Rate-payers’ Associa- 
tion, 74 


Chinese Republic, 221; weak- 
ness of, IgI 


Ching, Prince, 9 


Christian general, see Feng Yu- 
hsiang 


Confucius, revival of worship of, 
26 


Crimean War, Russia in the Far 
East during, 205 


Cushing, Caleb, 87 

Customs Tariff Treaty, of 1922, 
136 

Dutch, in China, 172 


East India Company, 84 
Empress Dowager, death of, 8; 


plot against, 6; and reform 
movement, 7 

England, commercial interests in 
China, 129 


Extraterritoriality, 81, 93 ff.; ab- 
olition of, 95; see also Washing- 
ton Conference 


Far Eastern Republic, 214, 215 

Federal Wireless Company, in 
China, 154 

Feng Kuo-chang, president, 29; 
vice-president, 27 

Feng Shih-yu, 68 

Feng Yu-hsiang, 34, 113; occu- 
pies Peking, 40 

France, commercial interest in 
China, 161 ff.; policy in Far 
East, 164 f. 


Franco-Chinese School, 71 


Genghis Khan, 202 


Gold Franc Controversy, 38, 
162 ff. 


Great Siberian Railway, 219 


Great War, 25, 90, 213; period 
of, 148 


Habarov, 203, 204 

Hanyang Ironworks, Japanese 
interests in, 152 

Hart, Sir Robert, 121 

Higher Normal School for Girls, 
uprising in, 71 

Hongkong and Shanghai Bank- 
ing Corporation, 19 

Hsiung Hsi-ling, 17 


[ 250 } 


INDEX 


Hsuan Tung, Emperor, acces- 
sion of, 8 


Hsu Shih-chang, resignation of, 


34 
Hsu Shu-tseng, 32 


Hukuang loan agreement, 158; 
Railway, Io 


International 
tium, 165 f. 


banking consor- 


International Foreign Municipal 
Council, 74, 91, 92, 143 
Irkutsk, founding of, 202 


Japan: commercial interests in 
China, 129; control of Chinese 
railways, 148, 151; financial 
hold over China, 153; press, 
77; 1n Shantung, 28 

Joffe, A. A., 60, 61, 66, 167, 218 

Jung Lu, 5, 6 


Kang Hsi, 204 

K’ang Yu-wei, reformer, 4 ff. 

Kao Ling-wei, wanted as pre- 
mier, 37 

Karahan, 166; inciting anti- 
foreign sentiment in China, 


61 ff. 

Kiangsi Railway, Japanese con- 
trol of, 152 

Koo, Wellington, 167; The Status 
of Aliens in China, 81 

Kuomingtang, 23, 44; formed, 
22: in Parliament, 24 

Kutshum Khan, 201 

Kwang Hsu, Emperor, 3; death 
of, 8 


“Lady Hughes” incident, 83 f. 
Liang Shih-yi, premier, 33 
Liaotung peninsula, 208, 210, 


217; Japan demands lease of, 
151; Russian lease of, 151 

Likin, 132 f., 135 

Lincheng, 37 

“Little Hsu,” see Hsu Shu-tseng 

Li Yuan-hung, 11, 14, 19, 28, 
29; and Parliament, 35; plot 
against, 35; president, 27; 
reassumes presidency, 34; re- 
tires, 37; vice-president, 16, 24 

Loans, Bureau of National 
Loans, 21; foreign, 1912-13, 19 


Marconi Company, 154 
Ma Soo, 68 


Mixed court, establishment of, 
g2 f. 


Monarchy, restoration of, 29 


Morse, Jnternational Relations of 
the Chinese Empire, 81 


Municipal Council, see Inter- 
national Foreign Municipal 
Council 


Muraviev, Nicholai, 205, 206 


Naigai Wata Kaisha, 72 


Nanking National Council, 16; 
Treaty of, of 1842, 86 f., 130 f., 
206 


Nicholas I, Tsar, 205 
Nine-Power Customs Treaty, 163 


Octroit, and the Christian Gen- 
eral, 36 


[ 251 ] 


OCCIDENTAL INTERPRETATIONS 


Open door, and Russian intrigue, 
210 


Opium, 142; War, 85, 130 
Ostroumoy, B. V., 119 ff. 


Padoux, George, 100 

Paotingfu, headquarters of Tsao 
Kun, 36 

Peace Conference, at Versailles, 
96 

Peiyang party, domination of, 
27; split in, 29 

Peking Government University, 
60 

Peking: -Hankow Railway, 108 
ff.; -Mukden Railway, 140, 
142; Treaty of, 207 

Portsmouth, Treaty of, 210 

Presidential Election Law of 

P’u Yi, see Hsuan Tung 


Red Army, Chinese, 43 

Reform, 185 ff.; constitutional 
proposed, 8; need for Chinese, 
4 

Reorganization 
planned, 44 

Revolution, beginning of, 10; 
cause, 9; Second, 23 

Rockefeller Foundation Medical 
School in Peking, 159, 196 


Conference, 


Russell and Company, 86 

Russia, soviet, political interests 
in China, 130 

Russian Language School, up- 
rising in, 70 

Russo-Asiatic Bank, 119 


Russo-Japanese Treaty, 
2.26 


1925, 


Saghalien, 207, 210, 215, 226 

Shameen, attack on, 78 f. 

Shanghai: Committee, 13; 
-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway, 
142; Municipal Council, 76; 
-Nanking, Railway, 142; strikes 
Tail tee 

Shanghai University, 77 

Shantung, 25, 213, 216; question, 
144; Railway, Japanese occu- 
pation of, 149 

Sino-Japanese War, 217 

Sino-Russian Treaty of May 31, 
19245:62,\170, 222 

South Manchuria Railway, Jap- 
anese demands on, I$1 

Soviets, in China, 61 ff., 166; 
press, 77 

Students: in American schools, 
160; demonstrations of, 57 ff. 


Sung Chiao-jen, 22 
Sun Pao-ch’1, 38 
Sun Yat-sen, 15, 47, 61, -62; Ths 


118; control weakening, 42; 
death of, 44; escapes from 
Canton, 35; leader of Red 
Army, 43; president of China, 
13; and the soviet, 66 


Taiping rebellion, 132 
Taliyuano, 115 

Tang Shao-yi, 41 
Taokow-Chinghua Railway, 142 
Tibet, 145 f. 

Tientsin-Pukow Railway, 54, 142 


{ 252 } 


INDEX 


Tientsin Treaty of 1860, 131 

Trans-Siberian Railroad, 207 

Treaty powers, 90; commercial 
rights of, 129 

Tsai Ao, in revolution, 26 

Tsao Kun, 29, 32, 39; election of, 
51; pledged to administration, 
34; president, 37 

Tsinghua College, 159 

Tuan Chi-jui, 15, 29, 32, 41, 1545 
in control of north, 46; min- 
ister of war, 17; premier, 27; 
for republic, 29 

T’ung Chih, death of, 3 

Tuchun, system denounced, 35 

Tungmenhui, 17, 22 

Twenty-one Demands on China, 
Se 

Tzu An, Dowager Empress, 3 

Tzu Hsi, Dowager Empress, 3 


United States, commercial inter- 
ests in China, 129; Court for 
China, 91; educational work in 
China, 158ff.; interests in 
China, 156 ff.; philanthropic 
work in China, 195 f.; trade 
with China, 160 f. 


W aichiaopu, 71 
Wang &. 1,, 62, 167 
Wanghia, Treaty of, 87 ff. 


Wang Huai-ching, 36 

Washington Conference, 25, 144, 
155, 227; Chinese tariff au- 
tonomy, 135; extraterritori- 
ality, 97, 99 

Weng Tung-ho, 4 

Wen Tsung-yao, 13 

Wuchang, group, 13; revolution 
at, II 

Wu Pei-fu, 39, 40; betrayed, 40; 
dismissed, 32; victor in Peking, 
32; 34 


Wu Ting-fang, 13 


Yenching University, 78, 159 


Yen Hsi-shan, administrator of 
model province, 47 


Yen, James, 50 

Yen, W. W., nominated premier, 
38 

Yermak, 201 

Y.M.C.A. School of Finance, 160 


Yuan Shih-kai, 6, 8, 13, 15, 21, 
Ole maby WE68 conditions since 
death of, 51; and Japan in 
191, 25, 26; for monarchial 
restoration, 25, 26; premier, 
12, presented with Twenty- 
one Demands, 150 f.; presi- 
dent: 16, inysieeae4:* revolt 
against, 26; versus the legisla- 
ture, 23 


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